The Legal Status of Barren Wives in the Ancient Near East

The Legal Status of Barren Wives in the Ancient Near East Kayla White Biblical narratives of barren wives such as Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, law collections could have served as guidelines for how society Hannah, and the mother of Samson paint a picture of God’s should function. sovereignty and faithfulness to fulill promises to a burgeoning It is also important to remember that all written laws may nation. In these narratives, the modern reader encounters polygyny be more part of a world of “ought” than of “is.” In other words, and polycoity,1 wife rivalry, preferential treatment of certain wives the laws project social ideals and expectations. hey do not and their children, and divorce, all of which are seemingly at odds automatically tell us what people were actually doing “on the with our biblical notions of marriage, divorce, and ethical treatment ground.” Performance, i.e. compliance, always depends upon the of others. hough scripture is mostly silent on the ramiications powers of government as well as upon the will and internalized of barrenness, it is possible to look beyond the biblical witness values of the population.8 to the broader ancient culture in order to understand its impact Legal texts pertaining to polygyny and polycoity both on the women involved and society as a whole. Ancient legal, mythical, ritual, and medical records not only provide us with the Although existing within a society that places women under the broader cultural understanding of barrenness, but also, at times, control of fathers or husbands, a barren wife could utilize various mirror some of the personal and spiritual responses found in the legal precedents as a means to secure her future. One of the options biblical material. As a means of further understanding how this available for a barren wife is to encourage her husband to take a malady impacted ancient near eastern civilization, this article second woman, oten “as a wife.” Oten this second wife is signiied focuses on barrenness in legal records. in the textual witness through the use of “wife” (aššatum), “slaveAkkadian legal material oten signiies the biological status wife” (amtum),9 or “junior wife/concubine” (šugītum).10 However, of the barren wife with the phrase, the one “who has not born in spite of the oten cited polygynous marriage accounts in the children” (ša mārī lā uldūšum). Her title is oten simply “wife” biblical ancestral narratives or practices of royalty, monogamy is (aššatum).2 If she is the irst of multiple wives, however, she is the far more common practice.11 No speciic law explicitly states oten distinguished as “irst-ranking a husband may take a second wife. wife” or “wife of equal status” (ḫīrtum).3 However, the practice of polycoity In spite of the often cited A barren wife represents a seemingly can be inferred from the use of the polygynous marriage accounts insurmountable obstacle to one of term ḫīrtum (“irst-ranking wife”) in in the ancestral narratives or the primary functions of marriage: the laws pertaining to divorce, which practices of royalty, monogamy to produce heirs capable of assisting will be addressed below.12 he single is the far more common practice. with the subsistence and economic legal stipulation that allows a husband stability of the family. One could even to take a second wife is in the form say that in some situations, “a childless of a caveat: in the event that his irstmarriage was not a full-ledged marriage.”4 What avenues are let ranking wife becomes sick or diseased to the extent that she is no for a barren wife to secure her future? While the most obvious longer able to fulill her duties as wife, then he may take a second solution would be to adopt a child, a variety of legal parameters wife.13 In this instance, a husband may take a second wife, but is protecting a irst-ranking wife suggest alternative options, such prohibited from divorcing his irst-ranking wife. In addition, both as taking a second wife, to provide a biological heir. However, LL §28 and LH §149 ensure provision for and protection of the taking a second wife is far more likely to threaten the status of irst-ranking wife as long as she remains in her husband’s home. a irst-ranking wife than adopting an heir. hus it is beneicial Moreover, should she decide to leave her husband’s home, LH §149 to study the marriage allowances and limitations concerning a stipulates the return of her dowry to her upon quitting the home. barren wife found in the extant legal collections. his study is At this point, the dowry would likely follow her back to the home limited to extra-biblical legal material5 and marital contracts6 of her father, where he would assume control until able to arrange within the broader ancient Near East as a means for determining another marriage. However, in the event that her father has already the status and rights of a barren wife. died, the dowry remains with her as her inheritance.14 Although Assessing both legal material and contractual agreements is barrenness does not seem to be the illness in mind here, the important for establishing an accurate depiction of society. Since inclusion of this law does establish a precedent for the provision of the various law collections at times provide only a broad picture a inancial settlement in the case of divorce due to illness.15 of a particular culture’s approach to justice, I view these edicts Taking a second wife to combat childlessness is more apparent alongside contractual agreements that provide detailed speciics in the contractual agreements. Although the most common as to how society functioned. Studies in comparative law airm reason for a husband to take a second wife is barrenness,16 the luidity of interpretation and application of the law within any some contracts expressly forbid the husband from acquiring given society.7 Rather than uniformly applied as normative, the a second wife or a concubine regardless of the fertility of the 18 • Priscilla Papers ◆ Vol. 28, No. 4 ◆ Autumn 2014 wife. Obviously, a family would need to be powerful to enforce this type of stipulation. In one contract, for example, it seems that marrying into royalty is enough to pacify the desire for ofspring.17 Another contract may instruct the husband to wait a period of seven years before taking another wife to ensure that his irst-ranking wife is barren.18 Occasionally, a husband would marry two sisters to circumvent the possibility of barrenness. While barrenness is not the impetus for Jacob marrying Leah, the biblical account in Gen 29 has some similarities with this practice. According to some Old Babylonian agreements, this practice is likely evidenced in several contracts, where the husband pays a bride-price for both sisters.19 In some contracts, the language of “sisterhood” indicates artiicial sisterhood (i.e. matrimonial adoption) in which the wife (or, in some instances, both husband and wife) purchases or adopts a “sister” as a git to the husband.20 he language used in these types of contracts speciies the unique nature of the relationship established between wives.21 Apparently this type of marriage agreement is beneicial to both wives, for the children born to one sister would become the ofspring of both.22 An additional protection for both women, which we will revisit in the section on divorce below, is that a joint marriage typically also results in a joint divorce, which would be inancially devastating for the husband. Another option evidenced in some contracts is to “adopt” a woman as a wife to the husband and slave to the irst wife, as demonstrated in CT 8 22b: “To Bunene-abi (Husband) she is a wife, to Belessunu (Wife 1) she is an amtum. . . .”23 his type of marriage contract is also beneicial to the irst-ranking wife, for any children born to the slave wife expressly belong to the irstranking wife. In addition, the irst-ranking wife retains authority over the slave wife, and in the event that the slave wife attempts to overreach her status, the irst-ranking wife may remove her from the home.24 If the slave wife has already provided children, the irst-ranking wife may not sell her, but may further reduce her rank and place the “slave mark” upon her.25 However, the beneits of this type of marriage also extend to the slave wife. hough her status is less than the irst-ranking wife, she still enjoys a higher position in the household than that of a house slave or concubine.26 It should be noted that the practice of including special provisions for a irst-ranking wife may not have always been observed. A marriage document from Alalakh, near the Mediterranean and the modern border of Turkey and Syria, is structured as a “sisterhood” marriage agreement in which a women and her niece marry the same man in order to ensure the husband is provided with an heir. However, unlike the “sisterhood” marriages of Babylon, the irst-ranking wife in Alalakh does not seem to enjoy the beneits typically associated with that type of marriage arrangement. he tablet, though fragmentary, does seem to indicate that whichever wife produces a child irst becomes the preferred wife.27 It should be noted that Paradise asserts that, at least at Nuzi, it is not common practice for a man to have two women in his household who simultaneously hold the rank of wife. Instead, one woman holds the rank of irst-ranking wife, while the other woman or women hold a secondary rank of concubine.28 Moving forward with this premise, Paradise sees a possible solution to taking a second wife indicated in some of the Nuzi contracts. his solution is speciied as a “reduction in status” for one of the wives.29 If Paradise’s assertions are correct, we can infer that in some situations the barren wife’s status is reduced to concubine. Although she may retain some rights and privileges, she loses her position as primary wife and “mother” to any children born. Legal texts pertaining to divorce and abandonment Divorce is another option available to the husband of a barren wife, and as evidenced in many societies, a husband may divorce his wife for essentially any reason.30 While the law collections may not include many explicit stipulations for polygamy, divorce is thoroughly addressed. Although a divorced barren wife would lose the protection of her husband, the law collections do establish a precedent for her inancial support. Several law collections imply that the inancial burden placed upon the husband is either to prevent capricious divorce or to provide inancial restitution to the wife.31 his principle is elaborated upon in the Hammurabi collection, which seems to imply infertility as a possible cause for divorce.32 In addition to the divorce settlement, which must equal the bride-wealth originally given by the husband to his father-inlaw, the wife is also given full restitution of her dowry. Driver and Miles agree that infertility is the likely cause for such a divorce, and that the high inancial cost serves to ofset an unjustiied divorce.33 Westbrook, however, views the monetary settlement as too steep to indicate infertility, especially in comparison to the other “illnessinduced” situation outlined in LH §148 (quoted in n. 13), which only stipulates the return of the dowry. Instead, he views this as similar to the case presented in LH §156, where double restitution is made due to the future father-in-law taking the bride’s virginity.34 LNB §12 is similarly structured to LH §138, but it addresses the inancial support of a widow. While the case does not involve any divorce proceedings, the stipulation by the court provides insight on practices meant to protect vulnerable women.35 Here, the court stipulates the return of the dowry as well as any marriage git that her husband may have awarded her. If no such git is awarded, the courts should assess her late husband’s estate, “and shall give to her some property in accordance with the value of her husband’s estate.”36 Regarding awarding an additional monetary settlement, only the Assyrian laws provide no inancial support of a wife in the event of divorce.37 Excluding the Assyrian laws, regardless of whether infertility is the motivating factor behind a husband’s desire to divorce his irst-ranking wife, most law collections do seem to establish a precedent that favors the position of the wife by placing a inancial deterrent upon the husband. However, the barren wife has another inancial weapon at her disposal: her dowry. he dowry, oten referred to in the legal and contractual material as šeriktu, is a git given by the parents to the daughter as an inheritance, and it remains vested in her name throughout Priscilla Papers ◆ Vol. 28, No. 4 ◆ Autumn 2014 • 19 her lifetime. Regardless of whether she is widowed or divorced, by the woman’s family, which indicates the high position of that in most instances38 it is hers to use as inancial support for the family within the community.46 herefore, it follows that families remainder of her life. he dowry remains intact for her children, of high status are oten able to ofer protection in the form of a or in the case of the barren wife, as part of her family’s estate, and contract awarding a sizeable dowry. In one contract, for example, returns to the children or family upon her death. According to the wife owns an orchard which is included as part of her dowry.47 Roth’s work on several Neo-Babylonian In the absence of these factors, the marriage contracts, however, ten to woman is let with a limited number In researching any group of iteen percent of dowry contracts of options for determining her future, women in ancient cultures, the include some type of real estate,39 so one of which includes returning to tendency can be either to paint it seems a safe assumption that some her paternal home if the dowry is an exaggerated caricature of an childless, divorced, or widowed women not sizeable enough to allow her overly patriarchal society, or to could live quite comfortably from the independent status. dowry. As with the law collections, In the event that a woman has no attempt to create an egalitarian several of the contractual agreements paternal home and no children to culture from a few sparse texts. also uphold the return of the dowry to care for her, her options for inancial the wife (or her family) in addition to support oten include either slavery the divorce settlement ine, usually payable by the husband.40 In or prostitution. However, some research, primarily by Gelb and fact, Roth, Westbrook, and Paradise agree that one of the primary furthered by Roth, indicates the existence of a welfare system reasons for recording a marriage contract is the protection or provided through either the temple or benefactors. Termed delineation of the property.41 his may explain why, in the event the bīt mār banî in a few documents dating to Neo-Babylonian of a divorce, most contracts preserve a clause outlining the period, scholars have not yet reached consensus regarding what delineation of property, ines, or both. exactly this term indicates, what this welfare system encompasses, Returning to the “sisterhood” marriage contracts mentioned or the persons responsible for its continuation.48 If this program earlier, the language used to describe the unique relationship originates with the temple, Gelb’s research suggests the makeup of between “sisters” is especially pertinent in the event of divorce: “the temple personnel includes (among others) the homeless, poor, and marrier of one marries the other; the divorcer of one divorces the orphans—a population which surely encompasses some childless other . . .” (UET 5 87).42 Again, this unique relationship provides women. However, according to Gelb, while this institution both women an additional layer of protection from capricious would have alleviated their living conditions, it may also have divorce. Should a husband decide to divorce one of them, the exploited them as part of the temple workforce.49 His assessment contract stipulates that they will both leave, presumably with corresponds with some of the contracts in which the bīt mār their dowries as well as any children born into the marriage.43 banî are mentioned. In one contract, a young girl is presented he concept that a divorced woman could be awarded custody the options of either prostitution or entering the bīt mār banî. In of the children radically expands her rights within the marriage. another document, involving an adoption, the mother giving up In two contracts relating to a barren couple adopting a child, the her daughter stipulates that the adopters may not turn the child wife is given permission to take the child in the event her husband over to the bīt mār banî.50 Although information regarding the bīt divorces her.44 In the slave wife marriage contracts, the result mār banî is scarce, this option is preferable to a life on the streets. seems to be the same. Since the slave wife is purchased as a slave Relevant to our study, the bīt mār banî may have provided shelter to the irst-ranking wife, in the event of a divorce the slave wife and food for divorced barren wives with no family connections or and any children would presumably leave with the irst-ranking inancial support. wife. he prospect of losing both wives and the dowry, as well as Conclusion any heirs, would be a strong deterrent to any husband wishing to change his marital situation. his precedent demonstrates an In researching any group of women in ancient cultures, the exceptional protection for the barren wife placed in the diicult tendency can be either to paint an exaggerated caricature of an situation of either sharing her home and rank with a second wife overly patriarchal society, or to attempt to create an egalitarian (even if that wife is her sister), or facing an imminent divorce due culture from a few sparse texts. Since the biblical material to factors beyond her control. provides only a few narratives on the issue of barrenness, However, as with the practices of polygyny and polycoity, scholars are let to ill in the gaps with inferences. Both positive some contracts do not include any stipulations for the protection and negative practices of cultures co-existing with ancient Israel of a barren wife. In one contract from the Neo-Babylonian facilitate such inferences by painting an accurate portrait of period, once the second wife has given birth, the irst-ranking the status and rights of a barren wife in the ancient Near East. wife is awarded no inancial support.45 In this instance, the In spite of exceptions in every society, it is plausible to suggest protection of a woman is primarily determined by the status that, at least within the legal structure, speciic provisions and of her family. Contracts that provide stipulations to protect a precedents were established to provide a barren wife the means woman from polygyny, polycoity, or divorce are usually initiated with which to secure her future. 20 • Priscilla Papers ◆ Vol. 28, No. 4 ◆ Autumn 2014 Notes 1. Polycoity, a speciic kind of polygyny, results when a husband has two or more wives of unequal social status (such as Sarai and Hagar in Gen 16). It should be noted at the outset that this article does not address the naditum/seriktum (temple priestesses); unlike the barren wives under discussion here, these women are childless by choice. 2. CAD vol. 1, A: Part Two, 462–65. In addition to numerous abbreviations from he SBL Handbook of Style, this article utilizes other abbreviations standard in studies of the ancient Near East: AT = Alalakh Tablet, BE = Babylonian Expedition of the University of Pennsylvania, Series A: Cuneiform Texts, LE = Laws of Eshnunna, LH = Laws of Hammurabi, LL = Laws of Lipit-Ishtar, LNB = Neo-Babylonian Laws, LU = Laws of Ur-Nammu, MAL = Middle-Assyrian Laws, UET = Ur Excavation Texts, VAS = Voderasiatische Schritdenkmäler der Königlichen Museen zu Berlin. 3. CAD vol. 6, H, 200. 4. Karel Van der Toorn, From Her Cradle to Her Grave: he Role of Religion in the Life of the Israelite and Babylonian Woman (Sheield: JSOT, 1994), 70. 5. Gordon R. Driver and John C. Miles, eds., he Babylonian Laws (2 vols; Oxford: OUP, 1952); COS; ANET; Martha T. Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor (SBLWAW 6; Atlanta: Scholars, 1995). 6. COS vol. 3; Rivkah Harris, “he Case of hree Babylonian Marriage Contracts,” JNES 33, no. 4 (1974): 363–69; Emil G. Kraeling, he Brooklyn Museum Aramaic Papyri: New Documents of the Fith Century B.C. from the Jewish Colony at Elephantine (New Haven: YUP, 1969); Jonathan Paradise, “Marriage Contracts of Free Persons at Nuzi,” JCS 39, no. 1 (1987): 1–36; Martha T. Roth, Babylonian Marriage Agreements: 7th–3rd Centuries B.C. (AOAT 222; Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker, 1989); Roth, “he Neo-Babylonian Widow,” JCS 43 (1991): 1–26; Raymond Westbrook, Old Babylonian Marriage Law (AfOB 23; Horn, Austria: Berger & Söhne, 1988); “Marriage Customs” (AT 92) (3.101B), translation and commentary by Richard S. Hess, 251; “Seven Years of Barrenness before a Second Wife” (AT 93) (3.101C), translation and commentary by Richard S. Hess, 252; Christian Niedorf, Die mittelbabylonischen Rechtsurkunden aus Alalah (AOAT 352; Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2008), 284–88. 7. J. J. Finkelstein, he Ox that Gored (Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 71, pt. 2; Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1981), 35; Samuel Greengus, Laws in the Bible and in Early Rabbinic Collections: he Legal Legacy of the Ancient Near East (Eugene: Cascade, 2011), 8–9; John H. Walton, Ancient Israelite Literature in its Cultural Context: A Survey of Parallels Between Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Texts (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1989), 88. 8. Greengus, Laws in the Bible, 8. 9. CAD vol. 1, A: Part Two, 80–85. 10. CAD vol. 17, Š: Part hree, 200–201. 11. Marten Stol, “Private Life in Ancient Mesopotamia,” CANE 1:489; Samuel Greengus, “Legal and Social Institutions of Ancient Mesopotamia,” CANE 1:478; Harry A. Hofner Jr., “Legal and Social Institutions of Hittite Anatolia,” CANE 1:566. 12. Regarding whether the second wife was actually considered a wife on equal footing with the irst-ranking wife, see Paradise, “Marriage Contracts of Free Persons at Nuzi,” 8; Samuel Greengus, “Legal and Social Institutions,” CANE 1:478–79. 13. LL §28: “If a man’s irst-ranking wife (loses her attractiveness or becomes a paralytic), she will not be evicted from the house; however, her husband may marry a healthy wife, and the second wife shall support the irst-ranking wife.” Roth here acknowledges “second wife” as an alternative translation to “healthy wife.” he inal phrase, which stipulates the second wife must support the irst, could be rendered, “he shall support the second wife and the irst-ranking wife,” a translation more closely aligned with that of S. N. Kramer. Roth, Law Collections, 32; COS 2:413. Kramer, “Lipit-Ishtar Lawcode,” ANET 160: “If a man has turned his face away from his irst wife . . . (but) she has not gone out of the [house], his wife which he married as his favorite is a second wife; he shall continue to support his irst wife.” According to Kramer’s translation, initially presented in Francis R. Steele, he Code of Lipit-Ishtar (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1948), 3–10, 20, the tablet is broken at this section, making it diicult to determine the events surrounding this change of favor. See LH §148: “If a man marries a woman, and later la’bum-disease seizes her and he decides to marry another woman, he may marry; he will not divorce his wife whom la’bum-disease seized; she shall reside in quarters he constructs and he shall continue to support her as long as she lives” (COS 2:345). 14. Westbrook emphasizes special protections for the dowry of a childless wife: “. . . under no circumstances could her husband or his family (including children from other wives) inherit [the dowry].” Westbrook, “he Character of Ancient Near Eastern Law,” in A History of Ancient Near Eastern Law (2 vols.; ed. Raymond Westbrook; Handbook of Oriental Studies 72; Leiden: Brill, 2003), 1:61. 15. Contrast with the loss of any divorce settlement in LH §140–41, in which the wife has publicly disparaged her husband. 16. For commentary on attitudes toward polygamy in the biblical world, see Anthony Phillips, Essays on Biblical Law (JSOTSup 344; Sheield: Sheield, 2002), 113; David Instone-Brewer, Divorce and Remarriage in the Bible (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 8. 17. See, for example, HSS 9 24, in which a prince named Silwa-tesup writes, “As long as Šuwar-tepa lives, Zike shall not take a second wife. He shall not take a concubine.” Cf. Paradise, “Marriage Contracts,” 12. 18. Hess, “Seven Years of Barrenness before a Second Wife” (AT 93) (3.101C), COS 3:251–52. 19. Westbrook, Old Babylonian Marriage Law, TIM 4 46, TIM 4 49, UET 5 87, UET 5 274. his practice is also evidenced in TIM 4 47. 20. “Tayatum daughter of Enki-hegal has taken Ali-abi daughter of Urmashum-hazir and Sin-duri from her father Urmashum-hazir and her mother Sin-duri as a sister. Tayatum has given Urmashum-hazir and Sinduri her mother 5 shekels of silver as her terhatum. Tayatum has given her to her (T’s) husband Imgurrum for marriage” (BIN 7 173). Westbrook, Old Babylonian Marriage Law, 116; see also Meissner, BAP 89, CT 48 57, in Westbrook, Old Babylonian Marriage Law. 21. his language typically includes the clause, “the marrier of one marries the other” (UET 5 87). Westbrook, Old Babylonian Marriage Law, 133. 22. See Westbrook, Old Babylonian Marriage Law, 106–107, on the status of children born to a lesser-ranking wife; also Driver and Miles, Babylonian Laws, 304–305. 23. Westbrook, Old Babylonian Marriage Law, 119; see also Waterman, Business Document 39, TIM 5 1, CT 48 48, in Westbrook, Old Babylonian Marriage Law. 24. See CT 8 22b: “he day that Shamash-nuri says to her mistress Belessunu ‘You are not my mistress,’ she will shave her and sell her.” 25. he exact nature of the “slave mark” is unknown, but for possible options see Driver and Miles, Babylonian Laws, 1:306–309. 26. Westbrook, Old Babylonian Marriage Law, 106. 27 “If Naidu (W1) has not given birth to an heir, then the daughter of her brother, Iwassura (Brother), shall be given (to Iri-halpa) (Husband). If Tatadu (W2) gives birth irst for Iri-halpa, and aterwards Naidu gives birth, then the older(?) woman shall not be given anything . . .” Hess, “Marriage Customs” (AT 92) (3.101B), COS 3:251–52. C. Niedorf has recently addressed Hess’s translation of this tablet, particularly owing to the fact that (as Hess acknowledges) the text is fragmentary. Because our research does not rise or fall on the basis of this one tablet, I retain Hess’s translation. 28. Paradise, “Marriage Contracts,” 8 n. 19; contra J. Breneman, “Nuzi Marriage Tablets” (PhD diss., Brandeis University, 1971), 14, 24. Paradise’s assertion is based on the lack of any mention of multiple wives with the label of aššatum in any Nuzi marriage or inheritance documents. 29. “If W1 gives birth, then H shall not take another wife in addition to W1 nor reduce her to concubine rank . . .” (HSS 19 85). “If W1 gives birth, Priscilla Papers ◆ Vol. 28, No. 4 ◆ Autumn 2014 • 21 then H shall not take another wife and shall not make her a concubine” (JEN 435). Paradise, “Marriage Contracts,” 13. 30. Phillips, Essays on Biblical Law, 113; Greengus, “Legal and Social Institutions,” CANE 1:480; Grace I. Emmerson, “Women in Ancient Israel,” in he World of Ancient Israel: Sociological, Anthropological, and Political Perspectives (ed. R. E. Clements; Cambridge: CUP, 1989), 385. 31. LU §9: “If a man divorces his irst-ranking wife, he shall weigh and deliver 60 shekels of silver.” Roth, Law Collections, 18; see also in Roth LU 10, LNB 12. According to Hittite Law §24, a female laborer could earn a monthly wage of six shekels, so it can be assumed that the total inancial settlement from an unjustiied divorce could equal a laborer’s annual wage; see Hofner, “Hittite Laws,” COS 2:108–109; Roth, “Legal and Social Institutions of Hittite Anatolia,” CANE 1:560. 32. LH §138: “If a man intends to divorce his ḫīrtum who did not bear him children, he shall give her silver as much as was her bride-wealth and restore to her the dowry that she brought from her father’s house. . . .” Roth, “Laws of Hammurabi,” COS 2:344. 33. Driver and Miles, Babylonian Laws, 1:296. 34. LH §156: “If a man selects a bride for his son and his son does not yet carnally know her, and he himself then lies with her, he shall weigh and deliver to her 30 shekels of silver; moreover, he shall restore to her whatever she brought from her father’s house, and a husband of her choice shall marry her.” Roth, “Laws of Hammurabi,” COS 2:345. 35. LNB §12: “A wife whose husband takes her dowry, and who has no son or daughter, and whose husband fate carries away—a dowry equivalent to the dowry (which her husband had received) shall be given to her from her husband’s estate. If her husband should award to her a marriage git, she shall take her husband’s marriage git together with her dowry, and thus her claim is satisied.” Roth, “Neo-Babylonian Laws,” COS 2:361. 36. Roth, “Neo-Babylonian Laws,” COS 2:361. 37. MAL 37: “If a man intends to divorce his wife, if it is his wish, he shall give her something; if that is not his wish, he shall not give her anything, and she shall leave empty-handed.” Roth, Law Collections, 167. 38. Cf. LH §140–41. Driver and Miles infer that in the case of a wife publically disparaging her husband, the language implies that she forfeits all property and gits as a result of her misconduct. Driver and Miles, Babylonian Laws, 273. 39. Roth, “he Neo-Babylonian Widow,” 26 n. 109. 40. Some scholars view the inclusion of a ine placed upon the wife as “instigator” of the divorce proceedings as an indication that women could divorce their husbands; cf. BE 6/2 40, Westbrook, Old Babylonian Marriage Law, 115. However, most agree that, if this was a possibility, it was uncommon. See Instone-Brewer, Divorce and Remarriage, 6; Greengus, “Legal and Social Institutions,” 480; Westbrook, Old Babylonian Marriage Law, 79–80; Roth, Babylonian Marriage Agreements, 14. 41. Paradise, “Marriage Contracts,” 1; Roth, Babylonian Marriage Agreements, 25; Westbrook, Old Babylonian Marriage Law, 6. 42. Westbrook, Old Babylonian Marriage Law, 133. 43. “If in the future, H says to W1 ‘You are not my wife,’ she shall take the hand of her sister, W2, and leave” (BIN 7 173). Westbrook, Old Babylonian Marriage Law, 116. 44. Cf. Westbrook, Old Babylonian Marriage Law, PBS 8/2/107; VAS 18 114. 45. “. . . (if W1 does not bear children, all property of H) in city and country, as much as there may be—will belong to W2 and her children.” Roth, Babylonian Marriage Agreements, 42. 46. Cf. Paradise “Marriage Contracts,” 12. 47. “. . . should H desire to have another wife, W1 retains orchard which was given as part of her dowry. She may take it and leave.” Roth, Babylonian Marriage Agreements, 46. 48. A literal translation of bīt mār banî such as “house of the free person” is problematic because it fails to capture the phrase’s meaning in the literature. 49. I. J. Gelb, “he Arua Institution,” RA 66, no. 1 (1972): 1–32; Martha T. Roth, “Women in Transition and the bīt mār banî,” RA 82, no. 2 (1988): 133–38. 50. Roth, “Women in Transition,” 133, 136. KAYLA WHITE has taught music and worship arts for the past 15 years, both in the classroom and at the local congregational level. Having recently completed an MA in Old Testament Biblical Studies at Denver Seminary, she is currently pursuing research and teaching opportunities that combine her interests in worship arts and empowering women in the local congregation. Kayla lives in Arkansas with her husband and their furry child, Sammie. Save the Date! Join CBE for Give to the Max Day 2014 | cbe.today/gtmd 22 • Priscilla Papers ◆ Vol. 28, No. 4 ◆ Autumn 2014