What Is The Legacy Of Hammurabi Code Of Laws

The laws of Hammurabi date back all the way back to King Hammurabi’s reign around 1792-1750 B.C. These set of laws were created by the king himself to bring the rule of righteousness to his kingdom, and make his kingdom a peaceful abiding place for people to live in. Although some set of laws may be harsh everyone in his kingdom, which is now most of modern day Iraq, had to follow these rules on a day to day basis. The code of laws has around 280 laws that cover most of what people had to deal with in that day in age, for example it covers agricultural practices, homicide, divorce, and even theft. King Hammurabi left behind a legacy, because even years after his death people all over the world looked up to the Code of Hammurabi.

One of the

One of the biggest things the code of laws did was give people the personal responsibility of not stealing or it would be punished by death, for example law number 22. The law states, “If any one is committing a robbery and is caught, then he shall be put to death.” (Hammurabi, pg8), therefor with this law Hammurabi hoped that people would take it upon themselves and think twice about the actions they had done, or thought of doing. Moreover, adultery was a very big subject during this time as well, it could be punished by death. Law number 129 says, “If a man's wife be surprised (in flagrante delicto) with another man, both shall be tied and thrown into the water, but the husband may pardon his wife and the king his slaves.” (Hammurabi, pg18) With this law women had the personal responsibility of not cheating on their husband. Another perfect example of Personal responsibility is the famous law “eye for an eye”, law number 196 states as follows, “If a man put out the eye of another man, his eye shall be put out.” (Hammurabi, pg28) This law gave people the personal responsibility of their own actions, which in turn might help them think twice about what they were going to do or

Both set of laws are written down to tackle very similar problems, ranging from family matters to theft. Examples of this is that to be divorced, there must be arrangements done to do so, if not done then marriage with another person cannot happen. This would be the case in both the Code of Hammurabi and todays US laws. However, this in in turn goes the other way as well though, while they may be similar they also can be very different to each other. One main point that establishes the difference between them is the fact that each set of laws treat people differently. A lot of the laws in the Code of Hammurabi are punishable by death or in a “eye for an eye” type of way, while in today’s US laws punishments are not as harsh. Some laws during that time that were punishable by death are now only punishable by sometime in prison or by a