As will be seen farther on, when Babylonian life of a later period comes to be treated of, the leasehold system, with all its disadvantages, was in full force, and there is just the possibility that it was already in use during the time of the dynasty of Babylon. Even at this early date the question of party walls was an important one, as the tablet of Šamaš-în-mâtim and Êrišti-Aa, daughter of Zililum, shows. They were to set up the dividing wall (_gušuru_, apparently palings) _aḫum mala aḫim_, lit. “brother as much as brother,” _i.e._ one as much as the other. They managed things differently in ancient Babylonia, and if this was the usual arrangement, it must have given rise to endless disputes. It is probable that, before the time of Ḫammurabi, the ancient Babylonians had no code of laws in the true sense of the term. All the legal decisions known seem to have been decided on their merits by the judges who tried the cases, and in such actions in which the judges could not come to a decision, the matter seems to have been referred to the king, whose word was, to all appearance, final. Naturally an enormous responsibility rested on the judges on account of this, but they were not entirely without help in the matter of deciding difficult and unusual questions. Lists of precedents were kept, and to these, in all probability, they constantly referred—indeed, the tablets of legal precedents were held in such high esteem, that copies of them were kept in the libraries of Assyria, and in Babylonia also, in all probability, until long after the destruction of the Assyrian power, notwithstanding that legal use and wont had by that time somewhat changed. One or two examples of these legal precedents may here be quoted to show their nature:— “If a son say to his father, ‘Thou art not my father,’ they may shave him, put him in fetters, and sell him for silver. “If a son say to his mother, ‘Thou art not my mother,’ they may shave off his hair, lead him round the city, and drive him forth from the house. “If a wife hate her husband, and say to him, ‘Thou art not my husband,’ they may throw her into the river. “If a husband say to his wife, ‘Thou art not my wife,’ he shall pay her half a mana of silver. “If a man hire a slave, and he dies, is lost, runs away, gets locked up, or falls ill, he shall pay as his hire every day half a measure of grain.”