The civilization of Babylonia and Assyria

Its remains, language, history, religion, commerce, law, art, and literature

by Morris Jastrow | 1915 | 168,585 words

This work attempts to present a study of the unprecedented civilizations that flourished in the Tigris-Euphrates Valley many thousands of years ago. Spreading northward into present-day Turkey and Iran, the land known by the Greeks as Mesopotamia flourished until just before the Christian era....

These instances will suffice to illustrate the great care that was taken to prevent, as Hammurapi says in the introduction to the Code, "the strong from oppress-pleased. Even prior to the promulgation of the Code, throughout is to protect those who need to be secured against an advantage that may be taken of them — wives, widows and minor children.

The attempt was also made to make the position of daughters more secure than it must have been in an earlier period when the father had the right to dispose of his daughters as he pleased. Even prior to the promulgation of the code, the period had been passed when fathers could sell their daughters to their husbands.

The dignity of marriage and of family life had been recognized to the extent that the father gives the daughter a dowry on her marriage, and that a portion of the estate is settled upon her, though the latter does not appear to have been obligatory. It is expressly provided, however, that if the father fails to give his daughter a dowry, she is entitled to a share in the estate on the father's death equivalent to that of a son, with the restriction, however, that after her death it reverts to her brothers.

From an early period, the custom of devoting daughters to the service of a deity continued in force down to the end of the Babylonian-Assyrian monarchies. In the earliest form of this custom, such votaries were sacred harlots. We know of several classes of such votaries at the temple of Nana in Uruk, [1] and it is more than likely that they formed part of the organization in every religious centre.

In how far prostitution practices were carried on as part of the temple rites we do not know, but the circumstance that in Babylonia and Assyria, the lay prostitute had a certain standing may be taken as an indication that prostitution retained, from its connection with the ritual, a measure of sanctity which it is difficult for us from the modern point of view to appreciate. But besides acting as sacred prostitutes, female votaries performed other services including certain distinctly priestly functions. [2]

Such votaries and priestesses never entered into wedlock. The Code, accordingly, makes special provisions for them and places, as we have seen, the lay prostitute in the same category.

Strange to say, however, the latter is placed on a par legally with a bride, whereas the sacred prostitutes, of which the Code recognizes two classes the kadishtu ("pure" or "holy woman") [3] and zermashitu ("disregarding or neglecting the seed") [4] receive, in case no dowry is given to them, only one-third of a son's portion after the father's death (§ 181), presumably because these votaries were provided for by the temple organization to which they belonged, whereas the lay prostitute was under necessity of making her living by her trade.

The kadishtu and zermashitu could not dispose of their inheritance, which reverted on their death to the male heirs, whereas a votary attached to the Marduk cult at Babylon could dispose of her portion, and will it to whomsoever she pleased (182).

A general name for a woman attached to a temple was "entu" or "woman of a deity". Such votaries lived in a separate portion of the temple known as "dormitory" and equivalent to our nunnery, but there were also votaries who were not so confined.

The Code is severe on a votary who opens a wine-shop, which was the brothel in Babylonia and Assyria, for the penalty is death by burning, and this law is applied also to a votaiy or nun who even enters a wine-shop, the assumption being that she does so for purposes of prostitution with men who congregate there (§ 110).

In passing it may be noted that the Code assumes that the proprietors of these wineshops or brothels are women ; they appear to have been women of the lowest class quite different from the lay prostitutes. They naturally had a most unsavory reputation. Outlaws gathered in the dens kept by these women, and the Code provides that if a woman harbors such outlaws sought for by the courts, she suffers death as a punishment (§ 109).

The Code still recognizes, as a survival of an earlier day when the leading idea connected with marriage was to provide for offspring, the right of a wife to give her husband a concubine whose children would be recognized as though they were her own. We are familiar with this custom from the incident in the cycle of Abraham stories where the childless Sarah transfers her maid Hagar to her husband (Gen. 16, 3), and Bilhah, the maid of Rachel, is given to Jacob so that "she may bear on my knee and I acquire offspring through her" to indicate that Bilhah 's children will be regarded as hers (Gen. 30, 3). Such a concubine, however, did not have the rank of a wife (§ 145).

With this as a starting point, the Code endeavors to protect both the wife and the concubine, the former by providing that in case she does bear children, the husband may not take a concubine (§ 144), the latter by stipulating that the mistress, that is, the legitimate wife, may not sell the concubine who has born her husband children, but she may place a slave mark upon her and reckon her with the slaves (§ 146). In case, however, the concubine has not born any children, then the mistress may sell the concubine (§ 147) who, it is assumed throughout, is as in the case of the Biblical parallels the property of the wife a special handmaid.

It was not obligatory for a father to give a daughter who becomes a concubine a dowry. If he does so, then she has no further share in the property of her father upon his death (§ 183), whereas if he does not do so, then the brothers after the death of the father must give their sister a dowry proportionate to the amount of the paternal estate (§ 184) ; and it is furthermore provided that they shall provide a husband for their sister.

In both cases it is assumed that the concubine may be given by her father to a husband. In the former case he does so, in the latter he does not. It would seem therefore that the term concubine is applied in the Code in a double sense,

  1. as the handmaid of a wife brought to the husband for the purpose of bearing children and
  2. as an additional wife, not having the status of the man's wife, but at the same time not a handmaid of either the husband or of the wife.

Bearing in mind the Biblical parallels, the older practice appears to have been that in the case of a childless marriage, the wife brings to her husband her own handmaid, whereas with more advanced social conditions the husband could choose any woman as his concubine and place her in his household as a legitimate wife, though subservient in status to the chief wife. The concubine thus becomes the partner or rival of the first wife parallel to the case of the two wives of Elkanah, Hannah and Peninnah in the story of Samuel (I Sam. 1, 6) where Peninnah is spoken of as the "rival" or partner of Hannah in the possession of the husband.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Shurpu Series (ed. Zimmern), Tablet V-VI, 145-147.

[2]:

See the list of the various classes of priestesses occurring in legal and other documents given by Prank, Studien zur Babylonischen Religion, pp. 47-50, and which can be still further extended. Kings set the example by devoting one of their daughters to the service of a deity. See the illustration in the author's Bildermappe zur Religion Babyloniens und Assyriens, Nr. 26 and Dhorme's article "La fille de Nabonide", in the Revue d'Assyriologie, xi, pp. 105-117.

[3]:

Sumerian Nu-Gig = kadishtu, (Briinnow, Classified List No. 2017). The same term kedeshd is used in the Deuteronomic Code (Deut. 23, 18) as well as the masculine kddesh for such female and male votaries, which were forbidden by the Hebrew legislation.

[4]:

Nu-Par = zermashitu (Meissner, Seltene Assyrische Ideogramme, No. 1147.).

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