I came across this article: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/11/05/destroying-the-ancient-dick/, and it was so intellectually dishonest I HAD to come right about it here.

To give a tldr about the article, the author says that men and women once lived in a matriarchal/egalitarian paradise and worshipped Gods and Goddesses and sung kumbaya all day long together, until men, for some reason, decided that they hate women all of a sudden and decided to oppress us (I guess they saw an Amy Schumer special?), and for thousands of years treated women like trash until Mr Hammurabi came and made it worse by *legalizing* patriarchy.

And she specifically says:

"Men did it. And they saw the Women having babies out of their bodies. And they saw the babies growing up into what could be a workforce, and they decided to take a crucial and revolting step, which was to make Women and children into property, and to condemn their own spirits and identities to be mostly defined by what happens to their property. I start to understand that before the “greed event,” lots of bad things had already occurred, killings and rapes and theft and abominations of all kinds, but these bad things were never harnessed into a system. And then, says this British woman, they were. It was made into a system. Somebody did it. He is not a mystery person—his name was Hammurabi and he was a real man and he did it. He said that he did it. It wasn’t an admission; it was a declaration. He was proud. My colon is now apparently filled with lava? What this man created is this: the Code of Hammurabi. It was etched onto an obsidian phallus. It is physically scratched into a big hard ancient dick. And to be fair (although why must I, after all of this, be fair?!), the Code of Hammurabi has many different laws etched into its dark knob. Some are laws that are meant to keep the peace, but they are all spoken in a deeply misogynist voice, and so, in my opinion, they are unjust and they are void. The Code of Hammurabi is one of the first examples of legalized patriarchy, and it instilled these violent and demented ideals: A woman is the property of a man. A woman does not deserve to have as much as a man and she should not ever have as much as a man ever again."

Okay, ignoring all the emotionally charged hyperbole, she believes that the Code of Hammurabi relegated the despised women to property, and men, their tyrannical slave drivers. But are these accusations true? I've gone through all 282 codes, (or atleast the ones that survived anyway) and spoiler alert: They aren't.

I will be using this sources: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/ancient/hamframe.asp and http://faculty.collin.edu/mbailey/hammurabi%27s%20laws.htm, both of them are acceptable.

Myth #1: Women were property under Hammurabi's code

In Code 7 it says this: "If any one buy from the son or the slave of another man, without witnesses or a contract, silver or gold, a male or female slave, an ox or a sheep, an ass or anything, or if he take it in charge, he is considered a thief and shall be put to death." Women are not listed as things to be sold (except in female slaves)

If you can own your own property legally, you are not legally property.

Women could own their own property, as seen in Code 29, 39, 137,150, 171, 172, 176, 177, and 178

Women could also own their own businesses, as seen in Code 108, 110*, and 111.

*I included 110 here because it would not make sense to specifically ban Priestesses from owning a tavern or drinking in one because if ALL women could not open one, then it would be redundant.

Women could own slaves, who WERE property

As seen in Code 144, 146, and 147. It doesn't make sense how women, who are supposedly considered property, were able to own their own slaves.

Women could choose their own husbands and divorce them

Women could choose their own husbands as seen in Code 137, 156, and 172. 137: "She may then marry the man of her heart.", 156: " She may marry the man of her heart.", 172: " Then she may marry the man of her heart"

Women could divorce and move out of their hubby's house, and the hubby had to give her back his dowry, as seen in Code 139, 142, and 149.

Ok, in short, women were not considered property, were not prevented from opening businesses, owning gardens, fields, and other deeds, could pick their own husbands and divorce them, and could even own their own slaves. How on Earth is that considered being treated like property?

Myth #2: Women were ALWAYS treated as inferior under the Code of Hammurabi.

The author says "A woman does not deserve to have as much as a man and she should not ever have as much as a man ever again"

The funniest thing about this is that it's exactly the opposite, women HAD as much as men because men HAD to give it to them, but more on that later. Let's see if women were always treated like we did not "deserve to have as much as a man"

There are a great number of laws that were equal for both men and women, such as Code 151, which said both men and women were held equally responsible for their debts, and in Code 207 and 212 respectively show that killing a man and a woman carried the same punishment (which is a deviation from other laws such as the old Yemeni law which said killing a woman was eleven times worse than killing a man). Furthermore, in Code 153, if a man and woman conspire to have their spouses killed and kill them, BOTH of them are impaled, no harsher punishment for the woman.

Other women's rights

Men were not permitted to rape their daughters (Code 154, 155)

Sons can't mistreat their mother or throw her out of their house, but she can leave the house if she wants to (Code 172)

Slandering wives or priestesses was illegal (Code 127)

Women are entitled to their husband's support and shelter (Code 148)

Women could become priestesses (Code127)

Why it's bad for men

Like many old codes, male disposability is rife with this one. In Code 26, it says this, "If a chieftain or a man (common soldier), who has been ordered to go upon the king's highway for war does not go, but hires a mercenary, if he withholds the compensation, then shall this officer or man be put to death, and he who represented him shall take possession of his house."

This means that if you were born with a penis in ancient Babylon, you get to go to war and get maimed or speared to death for a king who doesn't even know who you are, and if you try and pay your way out of it, you get put to death and your ancestral property is transferred to a random shmuck. Lovely.

And what were men doing when they weren't being filled with arrows by foreigners? Well, they were earning and providing for women of course, as seen in Code 148, and if you want to divorce this woman, you likely had to pay for it, as seen in Code 149.

You might work as a builder, but be careful because in Code 229, if you make a mistake and the house collapses and kills the owner, you will be put to death. If the person's child is killed, your child will be killed also. Infact, there's loads of laws relating to occupations, if a man made one mistake, he could be punished quite harshly.

With all of this information in mind, I cannot see how you can say Ancient Babylonian men were privileged. I can only imagine that life was unbearably difficult for them.

So why did I write this? Because I AM SICK AND TIRED of coming across bullshit feminist pages on the internet that are RIFE with ahistorical propaganda. All I want to do is learn history, but it's hard when they LIE about everything. And it influences the way people think of men because feminists usually go "hurr durr men in the past hated and oppressed women and made the patriarchy and they are privileged and benefit from it" which is totally false.

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