In the Code of Hammurabi, who was King of Babylon about B. C. 2250, the most ancient of all known codes of law, woman fares well for so early a period. One of these quaint laws reads: "If a woman hates her husband and says, 'Thou shalt not have me,' they shall inquire into her antecedents for her defects. If she has been a careful mistress and without reproach, and her husband has been going about and greatly belittling her, that woman has no blame. She shall receive her presents, and shall go to her father's house." "If she has not been a careful mistress, has gadded about, has neglected her house and belittled her husband, they shall throw that woman into the water!" Under this code, a man might sell his wife to pay his debts. For three years she might work in the house of the purchaser; after which she was to be given her freedom. Where the law of Moses says: "He that smiteth his father _or his mother_ shall be surely put to death," Hammurabi's code enjoins: "Who smites his father, loses the offending limb." From the many contract tablets that have been exhumed much fresh light has been thrown upon the social customs of the people in the valleys of the Euphrates and the Tigris. In Babylonia the woman did not suffer greatly before the law from the fact that she was the weaker vessel. Indeed, the scales were held quite evenly as between the sexes. A woman might hold her own property, appear in public, and attend to her own business. Frequently, Assyrian women are depicted upon monuments riding on the highways upon mules. Woman might even hold office and plead in a court of justice--so far did Babylonia anticipate the progress of modern Western ideas. Agreements have been discovered upon tablets by which it was covenanted between a man and his wife that should the husband marry another during the lifetime of the first wife, all the dowry of the first shall be returned to her and she shall be allowed to go where she pleases. The law concerning divorce, however, would seem to lack that fairness which characterizes many other regulations of social life. A man might divorce his wife by the payment of a pecuniary consideration; but if a woman undertook the initiative in annulling the marriage contract, she might be condemned to death by drowning. In the formula for the exorcism used by the priests to break the spell the gods had sent upon one possessed or sick, we discover that despising the mother was regarded as being as culpable as dishonoring the father. "Has he perchance set his parents or relations at variance, sinned against God, despised father or mother, lied, cheated, dishonored his neighbor's wife, shed his neighbor's blood, etc. Indeed, an ancient law, which is thought to go back even to Accadian precedents, even gives to the woman, if she be a mother, greater honor than to the man for it is prescribed that if a son denies his father he is to be fined; if he denies his mother, he is to be banished."