The dowry would consist of a carefully marked out field of corn, a grove of date-palms, a house in the town, a trousseau, furniture, slaves, or ready money; the whole would be committed to clay, of which there would be three copies at least, two being given by the scribe to the contracting parties, while the third would be deposited in the hands of the magistrate. When the bride and bridegroom both belonged to the same class, or were possessed of equal fortunes, the relatives of the woman could exact an oath from the man that he would abstain from taking a second wife during her lifetime; a special article of the marriage agreement permitted the woman to go free should the husband break his faith, and bound him to pay an indemnity as a compensation for the insult he had offered her. This engagement on the part of the man, however, did not affect his relations with his female servants. In Chaldæa, as in Egypt, and indeed in the whole of the ancient world, they were always completely at the mercy of their purchaser, and the permission to treat them as he would had become so much of a custom that the begetting of children by their master was desired rather than otherwise: the complaints of the despised slave, who had not been taken into her master’s favour, formed one of the themes of popular poetry at a very early period. When the contract tablet was finally sealed, one of the witnesses, who was required to be a free man, joined the hands of the young couple; nothing then remained to be done but to invite the blessing of the gods, and to end the day by a feast, which would unite both families and their guests. The evil spirits, however, always in quest of an easy prey, were liable to find their way into the nuptial chamber, favoured by the confusion inseparable from all household rejoicing: prudence demanded that their attempts should be frustrated, and that the newly married couple should be protected from their attacks. The companions of the bridegroom took possession of him, and, hand to hand and foot to foot, formed as it were a rampart round him with their bodies, and carried him off solemnly to his expectant bride. He then again repeated the words which he had said in the morning: “I am the son of a prince, gold and silver shall fill thy bosom; thou, even thou, shalt be my wife, I myself will be thy husband;” and he continued: “As the fruits borne by an orchard, so great shall be the abundance which I shall pour out upon this woman.” * The priest then called down upon him benedictions from on high: “Therefore, O ye (gods), all that is bad and that is not good in this man, drive it far from him and give him strength. As for thee, O man, exhibit thy manhood, that this woman may be thy wife; thou, O woman, give that which makes thy womanhood, that this man may be thy husband.” On the following morning, a thanksgiving sacrifice celebrated the completion of the marriage, and by purifying the new household drove from it the host of evil spirits.**
* This part of the ceremony is described on a Sumero-
Assyrian tablet, of which two copies exist, discovered and
translated by Pinches. The interpretation appears to me to
result from the fact that mention is made, at the
commencement of the column, of impious beings without gods,
who might approach the man; in other places magical
exorcisms indicate how much those spirits were dreaded “who
deprived the bride of the embraces of the man.” As Pinches
remarks, the formula is also found in the part of the poem
of Gilgames, where Ishtar wishes to marry the hero, which
shows that the rite and its accompanying words belong to a
remote past.
** The text that describes these ceremonies was discovered
and published by Pinches. As far as I can judge, it
contained an exorcism against the “knotting of the tag,” and
the mention of this subject called up that of the marriage
rites. The ceremony commanded on the day following the
marriage was probably a purification: as late as the time of
Herodotus, the union of man and woman rendered both impure,
and they had to perform an ablution before recommencing
their occupations.
The woman, once bound, could only escape from the sovereign power of her husband by death or divorce; but divorce for her was rather a trial to which she submitted than a right of which she could freely make use. Her husband could repudiate her at will without any complicated ceremonies. It was enough for him to say: “Thou art not my wife!” and to restore to her a sum of money equalling in value the dowry he had received with her;* he then sent her back to her father, with a letter informing him of the dissolution of the conjugal tie.** But if in a moment of weariness or anger she hurled the fatal formula at him: “Thou are not my husband!” her fate was sealed: she was thrown into the river and drowned.***
* The sum is fixed at half a mina by the text of the
Sumerian laws; but it was sometimes less, e.g. ten shekels,
and sometimes more, e.g. a whole mina.
** Repudiation of a wife, and the ceremonial connected with
it, are summarized, as far as ancient times are concerned,
by a passage in the Sumero-Assyrian tablet, published by
Rawlinson, and translated by Oppert-Menant. Bertin, on the
contrary, takes the same text to be a description of the
principal marriage-rites, and from it he draws the
conclusion that the possibility of divorce was not admitted
in Chaldæa between persons of noble family. Meissner very
rightly returns to Oppert’s interpretation, a few details in
which he corrects.
*** This fact was evident from the text of the so-called
Sumerian Laws concerning the Organization of the Family,
according to the generally received interpretation:
according to that proposed by Oppert-Menant, it was the
woman who had the right of causing the husband who had
wronged her to be thrown into the river. The publication of
the contracts of Iltani and of Bashtum appear to have shown
conclusively the correctness of the ordinary translation:
uncertainty with regard to one word prevents us from knowing
whether the guilty wife were strangled before being thrown
into the water, or if she were committed to the river alive.
The adulteress was also punished with death, but with death by the sword: and when the use of iron became widespread, the blade was to be of that metal. Another ancient custom only spared the criminal to devote her to a life of infamy: the outraged husband stripped her of her fleecy garments, giving her merely the loin-cloth in its place, which left her half naked, and then turned-her out of the house into the street, where she was at the mercy of the first passer-by. Women of noble or wealthy families found in their fortune a certain protection from the abuse of marital authority. The property which they brought with them by their marriage contract, remained at their own disposal.* They had the entire management of it, they farmed it out, they sold it, they spent the income from it as they liked, without interference from any one: the man enjoyed the comforts which it procured, but he could not touch it, and his hold upon it was so slight that his creditors could not lay their hands on it.
* In the documents of the New Chaldæan Empire we find
instances of married women selling their property
themselves, and even of their being present, seated, at the
conclusion of the sale, or of their ceding to a married
daughter some property in their own possession, thus
renouncing the power of disposing of it, and keeping merely
the income from it; we have also instances of women
reclaiming valuables of gold which their husbands had given
away without their authorisation, and also obtaining an
indemnity for the wrong they had suffered; also of their
lending money to the mother-in-law of their brother; in
fine, empowered to deal with their own property in every
respect like an ordinary proprietor.
If by his own act he divorced his wife, he not only lost all benefit from her property, but he was obliged to make her an allowance or to pay her an indemnity;* at his death, the widow succeeded to these, without prejudice to what she was entitled to by her marriage contract or the will of the deceased. The woman with a dowry, therefore, became more or less emancipated by virtue of her money. As her departure deprived the household of as much as, and sometimes more than, she had brought into it, every care was taken that she should have no cause to retire from it, and that no pretext should be given to her parents for her recall to her old home; her wealth thus obtained for her the consideration and fair treatment which the law had, at the outset, denied to her.
* The restitution of the dowry after divorce is ascertained,
as far as later times are concerned, from documents similar
to that published by Kohler-Peiser, in which we see the
second husband of a divorced wife claiming the dowry from
the first husband. The indemnity was fixed beforehand at six
silver minæ, in the marriage contract published by Oppert.
When, however, the wife was poor, she had to bear without complaint the whole burden of her inferior position. Her parents had no other resource than to ask the highest possible price for her, according to the rank in which they lived, or in virtue of the personal qualities she was supposed to possess, and this amount, paid into their hands when they delivered her over to the husband, formed, if not an actual dowry for her, at least a provision for her in case of repudiation or widowhood: she was not, however, any less the slave of her husband—a privileged slave, it is true, and one whom he could not sell like his other slaves,* but of whom he could easily rid himself when her first youth was passed, or when she ceased to please him.**
* It appears, however, in certain cases not clearly
specified, that the husband could sell his wife, if she were
a shrew, as a slave.
** This form of marriage, which was of frequent occurrence
in ancient times, fell into disuse among the upper classes,
at least of Babylonian society. A few examples, however, are
found in late times. It continued in use among the lower
classes, and Herodotus affirms that in his time marriage
markets were held regularly, as in our own time fairs are
held for hiring male and female servants.