Hammurabi Dbq Essay

“Justice consists not in being neutral between right and wrong, but in finding out the right and upholding it, wherever found against the wrong.”(Theodore Roosevelt) To start off let’s talk about Hammurabi, a king not many people knew about. Thanks to clay writing tablets found by archaeologist, we know some things about him. Some things we know about Hammurabi is that he was a king for 42 years! In addition to that he was a king of a city state in Mesopotamia called, Babylon. Something else about Hammurabi is that he took power in 1792 BCE. Hammurabi also developed a code totaling an astonishing 282 laws. My question I need to answer is, Was Hammurabi’s Code Fair? There are three areas of law in Hammurabi’s Code which can be proven to be just. These three areas of law are family law, personal injury law, and property law.

This takes us to our first area of law, family law. Examples of justice can be first found in family law. If you take a look at document c, law 168, which reads, “If a man has determined to disinherit his son and has declared before the judge, “I cut off my son,” the judge shall inquire into the son’s past, and, if the son has not committed a grave

Examples of justice can be found both in family law as well as personal injury law. Our fist law is law 196 in document e. This law says, “If a man has knocked out the eye of a free man, his eye shall be knocked out” When I view this law, I see that justice has been reached. It seems to be a punishment where equality happens. What you do is done back. This simple concept is used in many situations to this day. Next, we have law 209, also in document e. This law in the code reads, “If a man strikes the daughter of a free man and causes her to lose the fruit of her womb, he shall pay 10 shekels of silver.” This law seems fair in my eyes because you can’t cause a man to lose the fruit of the womb so it makes sense to make them pay for what they have