Early written law codes: the Code of Hammurabi and its historical significance

Hammurabi

A modern day reader of the Hammurabi Law Code would immediately be stricken by the one primary punishment offered in a majority of the laws as being death. One could perceive from that fact that the Hammurabi society was one where death was a frequent occurrence. Comparing that society and its fixation on death with today's modern society and its abhorrence of death (at least as a punishment) leads one to believe that the rules were more generally followed during the Hammurabi era than they are in today's society.

Many of the Hammurabi laws were very simple and easy to follow and comprehend. Again, comparing those simple laws with today's complexity in applying societal rules and regulations, makes one wonder why today's society does not take a page from the Hammurabi Lawbook and make laws much more simple than what they are. Hammurabi wrote the laws in response to caring for all members of society and "so that all may know their rights and have glad hearts under Hammurabi's care" (Calliope, 2011, p. 23) and that could be the reason behind their simplicity. It could also be, however, that the simplicity was due to the fact that Hammurabi was writing for all levels of society; as the reader can ascertain by studying Hammurabi's laws, they were written for all members of society, but provided for different punishments for the different classes of citizens. As one study of Hammurabi determined "all were entitled to proper court procedure, a fair judge, and an appeal to the king himself" (Kruger, 2000, p. 11) but that did not mean that the punishments or judgments were equally distributed.

There were three laws that were intriguing and said a lot about the wisdom of Hammurabi. The second law dealt with a wrongfully accused individual. The law states that if anyone was to bring an accusation against an individual, and that individual would survive a leap into the river "escaping unhurt" then he who had brought the accusation would be put to death. What is interesting about this law is that someone who was a good swimmer would have a definite advantage over someone who was deathly afraid of water (deathly get it?). This law displays a number of aspects about the society in that the law does not refer to swimming at all, but couches the results as "if the river prove that the accused is not guilty." Couching the law in those terms, signifies a somewhat superstitious society that believes in the abstract as well as the physical factors of life.

The fifth law was also interesting in that a judge is held to a much higher standard than the normal citizen. This is one law that could have quite an effect on the decision making process of judges, knowing that one error in judgment would result in a lifetime ban, is a strong deterrent to erroneous judgments. The fifth law is one that could have a very strong impact on a society, even in modern day times.