of
silver."

So far the position of the wife is secured in the case of the
infidelity of the husband. But if we turn to the other side, when it
is the woman who is the unfaithful partner it is evident how strongly
the patriarchal idea of woman as property has crept into the family
relations. We find that a woman "who has set her face to go out and
has acted the fool, has wasted her house or has belittled her
husband," may either be divorced without compensation or retained in
the house as the slave of a new wife.

I would ask you to contrast this treatment with the free right of
separation granted to the Egyptian wife, whose position, as also that
of her children, in all circumstances was secure, and to remember that
this difference in the moral code for the two sexes is always present,
in greater or lesser force, against woman wherever the property
considerations of father-right have usurped the natural law of
mother-right. Conventional morality has doubtless from the first been
on the side of the supremacy of the male. To me it seems that this
alone must discredit any society formed on the patriarchal basis.

The Babylonian wife was permitted to claim a divorce under certain
conditions, namely, "if she had been economical and had no vice," and
if she could prove that "her husband had gone out and greatly
belittled her." But the proof of this carried with it grave danger to
herself, for if on investigation it turned out that "she has been
uneconomical or a gad-about, that woman one shall throw into the
water." Probably such penalty was not really carried out, but even if
the expression be taken figuratively its significance in the
degradation of woman is hardly less great. The position of the wife as
subject to her husband is clearly marked by the manner in which
infidelity is treated. The law provides that both partners may be put
to death for an act of unfaithfulness, but while the king may pardon
"his servant" (the man), the wife has to receive pardon from "her
owner" (_i.e._ the husband). The lordship of the husband is seen also
in his power to dispose of his wife as well as his children for
debt.[248] The period for debt slavery was, however, confined to the
years of Hammurabi.[249]

From this time onwards we find the position of the wife continuously
improving, and in the later Neo-Babylonian periods she again acquired
equal rights with her husband. The marriage law was improved in the
woman's favour.