The Status Of Women In Marriage In Ancient Mesopotamia

The ancient Mesopotamia has one of the ancient civilizations in the history of mankind,its social economy,politics,culture are highly developed,leaving a lot of historical data for future generations to learn.However,due to its typical patriarchal society,the males formed the main body in the extant information records,but relatively little about the issue of women.Actually women,like men,were also an important part of society,and by analyzing the issues of marriage,we can get a more comprehensive understanding of the social situation of that time,with special regard to women.The Ur Ⅲ Dynasty and the Old Babylonian period are the two representative periods of the ancient Mesopotamia civilization,both were highly developed in its policy,economic and culture.They promulgated the Laws of Ur-namma and Code of Hammurabi respectively,offering a clearly view about the status of women in marriage from a legal perspective.In addition,archaeologists excavated a large number of related marriage contracts,showing an image of women in the daily life.The sufficient information provides a reliable basis for the study.Therefore,this paper selects the Ur Ⅲ dynasty and the Old Babylonian period,trying to analysis the women in marriage in these two periods to know the marriage status of women in ancient Mesopotamia.In this paper,I use marriage and divorce as the fundamental starting points,and analyze the women in ancient Mesopotamia in the status of marriage mainly from three aspects,trying to study marriage status of the women in ancient Mesopotamia.First of all,through the code of the Ur Ⅲ dynasty and the actual marriage documents,I draw the conclusion that women are in the subordinate weak position in marriage.Then,I summarize the characteristics of women in the code and other mud tablets,Finally,I sum up the contents of the first two parts and concludes the conclusion that in the ancient Mesopotamia,the weak position of women in subordination of marriage is unquestionable.However with the development of time,the status of women in marriage,especially the economic status gradually improved.This was the result of the state maintaining the marriage system,ensuring social stability,but also the progress of civilization,as well as the development of society.