Middle Assyrian Laws

Historical source page 50

An Assyrian Law Code 49 who whether within a city or outside, whether at night on- a high- way or at an eating house, 65 or at a city festival forcibly (?) 66 seizes the virgin (and) violates her, 67 the father of the virgin takes the wife of the seducer 68 of the virgin and gives her to be ravished. To her husband he does not return her; he takes her away (from him). 59 The father of the ravished girl gives her as a possession 60 to the seducer. If the man has no wife, then three times the purchase price of the virgin the seducer must give to her father. The seducer who marries her cannot spurn her. 61 If the father does not wish to receive three times the price of the girl, 62 he may give his daughter to any whom he pleases. 54 If a virgin with her consent gives herself to a man, 63 the man must swear an oath (sc. to that effect). On his (sc. the adulterer's) wife 64 there is no claim. The seducer gives three times the price of the virgin, and the father can do to his daughter what he pleases. 66 bit ka-ri-e-ti, 'house of feasting', which seems to correspond to our 'restaurant'. "fci-i da-'a-a-^ni, an obscure phrase but for which I suggest a meaning 'duress'. Cf. di'atu for 'distress', Ungnad, Babylonische Briefe, p. 286. *' i3rma-an-zi-e- e-U, from mazu, 'to press' — an euphemistic term to indicate rape. It is not surprising to find so many terms in Assyrian for sexual inter- course. Modern Arabic is full of them, and in fact most languages have a large variety of such terms — some popular, and some of a literary origin. 68 naA-ka-a-na used for the adulterer (above § 22), as well as for the seducer of a virgin. 69 A curious and barbarous punishment that the innocent wife of the seducer should suffer for the crime of her husband and be made the victim in the same way as the virgin was victimized, but quite in keeping with the crude application of the lex talionis which marks this Assyrian Code. 60 a-na a-tyu-zi-ti, 'as a possession' — here, no doubt, in the sense of marriage. 61 la-a i-sa-ma-ak-h. from samaku, which from the context, as well as from a passage in an incantation text in which a form of the verb has been found (Muss-Arnolt, Assyrian Dictionary, p. 766a), must have some such meaning as 'reject, dispose of,' and the like. K I. e., he declines to receive the large indemnity which, however, involves his giving the girl to the seducer. •' I. e,., is not taken from the father's house as in § 53. M a^na aiiati-H la-a i-kar-ri-i-bu, i. e., the action set forth in the preceding law cannot be followed, in case the virgin willingly gave herself to the man. 4 JAOS 41