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Why Hammurabi's Code Was Unjust?

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Hammurabi's code was unjust because of it's family laws.A good example of how Hammurabi's code was unjust is law 129 (Doc C). In Law 129 it states ¨If a married lady is caught (in adultery) with another man, they shall bind them and cast them into the water.¨ This means the married lady and the man she is having an affair with will be tied together and thrown into water to drown. In the end two people will have lost their lives to this law. This punishment is too harsh, if a wife does not want to confront her husband and divorce because it will hurt his feelings she would have to hide her affair with another man. What if they weren't having an affair and someone saw them and thought they were. The woman cannot divorce, only men could and it …show more content…
Law 196 states ¨ If a man has knocked out the eye of a free man, his eye shall be ,,,,knocked out.¨ In law 218 it says a surgeon who worked with a bronze lancet on a free man for a serious injury, and has killed him during the surgery, his hands shall be cut off.These punishments are way to harsh. What if in law 196 a man accidently knocked out a free man's eye, his eye will have then been knocked out for no reason. The man won't be able to do everything that he could do before, it will take him twice as long to do things now that his vision has decreased. It's possible for people to die in surgery not from the doctors but from not being able to keep fighting to stay alive. What if that was the case back when Hammurabi's laws applied. A surgeon will not only be able to do day to day things but he will also not be able to perform surgery again causing him to lose his jobs. He will be seen less as a person and won't get as much respect as he did when he had hands. As you can now see these are cruel punishments that should not have existed. I hope this has helped you see that Hammurabi's code was too harsh and unjust to have and

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