AKKADIAN DOMESTIC LAWS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIV, Issue 7488, 28 May 1885, Page 4

AKKADIAN DOMESTIC LAWS.

The canon of ancient Akkadian domestic laws was one of the moat important inscriptions in the British Museum collection, said a lecturer at that institution, and was a document which all students of sociology should study, as in it were set forth laws and precedents which, even down to this day, governed Oriental society. In this wefirid the husband, as became a patriarchal society, treated as the supreme head of the family and styled the “ one who is looked up to/ 1 If a woman repudiated her husband dnd turned away from him, her punishment was death by drowning; but a husband could rid himself of his wife by a monetary payment. The severe punishment of the wife and mother was no doubt due to the high position which she held in the family, being called ‘'the goddess of the house,” “the enlarger of the family,I’and 1 ’ and any offence by her brought a great stain on the family. Offences against her by members of the family were punished with greater severity than those against the father. A son who denied his maternity was punished by “ the cutting off of hid hair and exclusion from the community;” but he could fora sdm of money manumit himself from his father.