The information that has come down to us is not so full as our knowledge of the Egyptian family, or, at least, the facts which relate to women have not yet been so firmly established. We may, however, accept the statement of Havelock Ellis when he says that "in the earliest times a Babylonian woman enjoyed complete independence and equal rights with her brothers and husband."[245] Later in Babylonian history--though still at an early period--women's rights were more circumscribed, and we find them in a position of some subordination. How the change arose is not clear, but it is probable that in Babylon civilisation followed the usual order of social development, and that with the rise of military activities, bringing the male force into prominence, women fell to a position of inferior power in the family and in the State. That this was the condition of society in Babylon in the time of Hammurabi (_i.e._ probably between 2250 B.C. and 1950 B.C.) is proved by the marriage code of this ruler, which in certain of its regulations affords a marked contrast with the Egyptian marriage contracts, always so favourable to the wife. Marriage, instead of an agreement made between the wife and the husband, was now arranged between the parents of the woman and the bridegroom and without reference to her wishes. The terms of the marriage were a modified form of purchase, very similar to the exchange of gifts common among primitive peoples. It appears from the code that a sum of money or present was given by the bridegroom to the woman's father as well as to the bride herself, but this payment was not universal; and, on the other side of the account, the father made over to his daughter on her marriage a dowry, which remained her own property in so far that it was returned to her in the case of divorce or on the death of her husband, and that it passed to her children and, failing them, to her father.[246] Polygamy, though permitted, was definitely restricted by the code. Thus a man might marry a second wife if "a sickness has seized" his first wife, but the first wife was not to be put away. This is the only case in which two equal wives are recognised by the code. But it was also possible--as the contracts prove--for a man to take one or more secondary wives or concubines, who were subordinate to the chief wife. In some cases this appears to have been done to enable the first wife to adopt the children of the concubine "as her children."[247] It is worth while to note the exact conditions of divorce in the reference to women as given in the clauses of Hammurabi's code--