events, we have no reasons for thinking that it is earlier than the time of the Second Assyrian Empire. [Illustration: CONTRACT-TABLETS.] CHAPTER VI SOCIAL LIFE The Contract-tablets.--We have learnt a great deal about the social life of Babylonia and Assyria from the contract-tablets which have been found in enormous numbers in Babylonia. A few have also come from the library of Nineveh, relating for the most part to the sale and lease of house property. Some of them have Aramaic dockets attached to them, giving the names of the persons mentioned in the contract and the nature of its contents. These dockets serve to verify the method of cuneiform decipherment, and are an indication that in the time of Tiglath-pileser III and his successors Aramaic was the common language of trade. Some of the Babylonian contract-tablets go back to the time of Khammurabi and his dynasty, and are in Sumerian. But the larger number are of much later date, and extend from the reign of Kandalanu, the predecessor of Nabopolassar, to that of Xerxes. For many years we have a continuous series of documents dated month by month in each year. A contract-tablet was often enclosed in an envelope of clay, on which its principal contents were inscribed. They were kept in large jars which answered to our modern safes. Married Life.--From the contracts relating to matrimony we learn that polygamy was very rare, and that the wife enjoyed a considerable amount of independence. The dowry she brought with her on marriage had to be restored to her in case of divorce. Moreover the woman could act apart from her husband, entering into partnership, trading with her money and conducting law-suits in her own name. In B.C. 555 we find a father transferring all his property to his daughter, and reserving only the use of it during the rest of his life. On the other hand wives, like concubines, could sometimes be purchased, though in this case if the husband married again he stipulated that he would send his first wife back to her home along with a certain sum of money. Children could be adopted, and there was the utmost freedom as regards the devolution of property, which could be 'tied up' by will. Burial.--The dead were buried after complete or partial cremation. With the exception of the kings they were interred in cemeteries outside the towns, tombs and tombstones being erected over them, with rivulets, which symbolized 'the water of life,' flowing at their side.