“‘If a wife (is authorised) to repudiate her husband, and to say to him: “Thou art not my husband,” she can have him thrown into the river.
“‘If a man (is authorised) to say to his wife: “Thou art not my wife,” he can have half a mina of silver paid to him.
“‘If the intendant lets a slave escape, if he dies (the slave), if he becomes infirm, if in consequence of bad treatment he becomes ill, he (the intendant) shall pay half a hin of corn a day (to the master of the slave).’”
In these ancient records we likewise find laws concerning property. One tablet seems to pertain to the observations made by a Sumerian agriculturist, which were proposed to the Assyrian agriculturists of the seventh century B.C. First of all are indicated the best conditions of crop-growing, the time for sowing, the calculating of the income, the tillage, irrigation, and the injurious animals which must be destroyed.
It is evident that, in spite of the difference in property or wealth, the interest is always the same, the calculation of interest on different sums in contracts showing that the figures bear a relation to one another.
Loans could be made with or without interest; they could be made with or without security, and these securities were of different natures:
“For the interest of one’s money.… He has given as security.… A house, a field, an orchard, a female slave, a male slave.”
Exchanges were frequent, and from the data on the tablets, the principal things exchanged are known:
“They exchanged a house for money. They exchanged a field for money. They exchanged an orchard for money. They exchanged a female slave for money. They exchanged a male slave for money.”