Middle Assyrian Laws

Historical source page 26

An Assyrian Law Code 25 the balance of what the gods have provided 24 they are entitled to it. 26 They need not submit to a river ordeal or to an oath. 26 25 If a woman is retained in her father's house and her husband dies, whatever her husband has voluntarily assigned to her, if there are children, they may take it, 27 but if there are no children, she takes it. 26 If a woman is retained in her father's house, her husband may enter it (and) any marriage gift 28 which her husband had given ri A curious phrase, the meaning of which must be deduced from the context. It seems to be the equivalent of our 'what Providence has granted', though it may also have a more technical import. 26 ba-ar-ru i-Uk-ki-ii,. Literally: 'they take as seized.' The phrase would seem to indicate that the brothers of the deceased lay their hands on any- thing which was not explicitly given by the husband to his wife. " The brothers need not submit to an ordeal nor swear an oath that they have not taken anything which belongs to the wife. They may settle the estate without further formalities, as handing in a sworn account and the like. " 1, e., a woman separated from her husband has no claim to the estate of her husband, if there are children. The widow is obliged to give up any- thing that he may of his own free will have given her during his lifetime. This is consistent with the law of divorce, as set forth in § 36. According to the Hammurabi Code (§ 150), the children have no claim after the death of their father on anything devised by him, by a duly sealed document, to his wife. ™ man-ma nu-du^un-na-a used, as in the Hammurabi Code, §§ 171-172, to designate the present which the husband gives to his wife at the time of marriage, whereas the bride's dowry which her father gives her is called ieriktu which to be sure likewise means 'a present'. Occasionally (so e. g. Ranke Babylonian Legal and Business Documents from the Time of the First Dynasty of Babylon, Nos. 84, 33 and 101, 13) nudunnu is used for the 'dowry', and this usage is met again in Talmudic literature in the corresponding nedunya (see Marcus .Tastrow, Talm. Dictionary, p. 878a) — applied to the wife's dowry from her father. The term is no doubt borrowed from Babylonian phrase- ology. As a survival of marriage by purchase, we have a third term tirhatu which, originally given to the father or to the widowed mother, is afterwards 'tied' to the wife's 'girdle', as the phrase runs (see Schorr, Altbabylonische Rechtsurkunden, p. 293, and the references there given), and settled upon her by the father or husband. The purchase price appears to have become a mere formality in the course of time, as we may conclude from the sum of pne shekel being named in a document as the tirhatu (Schorr, ib., No. 36),