The Household
In the early Near East, the basic social unit was probably the extended family: a man and his wife, his grown-up children (or at least his sons) and their partners and children, and his own unmarried children. Houses like the fifth-millennium example at Tell Madhhur (see chapter 4) seem designed to accommodate such a family, of perhaps twenty people, each nuclear unit having its own room, and the whole extended family sharing a large living room, storerooms, and kitchen. Alternatively, the family home might be adequate only for the patriarch, his wife, and unmarried children, their other children each building an adjacent house within the family compound when they married.
Residence in extended families may have continued down the millennia in rural Mesopotamia, where space for building was relatively unrestricted, and it was still the norm in Early Dynastic towns. By the early second millennium, however, the density of settlement within towns and cities made it difficult for extended families to live together and favored residence in smaller houses accommodating only nuclear families, often not located close together. Documents from Kish show that most households there consisted of a man, his wife, and their unmarried children, sometimes along with one or two other family members such as a widowed mother, an unmarried sister, or an underage brother. A slave girl could also be part of the family circle, in the role of surrogate mother (see section entitled "Marriage"); and within the household there might be a few other slaves, male or female.
A Mesopotamian clay tablet depicting a woman with a child, third or second millennium B. C.E. (Zev Radovan/Land of the Bible Picture Archive)
The social significance of the urban move to residence in nuclear families is uncertain.
Some scholars argue that it reflects a change in the makeup of society, the bonds of the extended family having given way to other ties, such as those to professional associations or to institutions that offered employment, the temple and the palace. Others cite the (limited) evidence from legal documents that indicates the continuing importance of the extended family in the inheritance and sale of land.
Children
Early Years. The Mesopotamian infant was protected in the womb against the baleful she-demon Lamashtu by magical amulets and incantations (in which the child was visualized as a ship on a dark sea carrying an unknown cargo). Abortion was illegal, although a recipe for an abortion-inducing potion shows that it was illicitly practiced. Children, however, particularly sons, were earnestly desired, for who else would care for a couple in their old age and make offerings to ensure the well-being of their spirits after their death? Where children were more abundant than resources, the baby might be adopted by a childless couple.
The baby was delivered with the mother in a crouching position, sometimes supported by two stones. A midwife assisted her, massaging her stomach, giving her the bark of certain trees to chew as a drug, and, if the birth was difficult, singing incantations. Soon after birth, the baby was given a name, often incorporating the name of the family god or the family's city of residence.
Babies were fed by their mother or by a paid wet-nurse for their first two or three years. During this time they were still threatened by Lamashtu, who was held responsible for infant mortality: The average family was lucky if more than two or three of their children survived into adulthood. Thereafter, life expectancy was good, seventy being considered a good age and 120 stated as the greatest age that the gods would allow; timely death was not feared but welcomed. Fifty was considered too young to die; early death through disease, accidents, or warfare was regarded as a sign that the gods, particularly the family deity, had turned their back on the individual concerned, often because of some consciously or unconsciously impious act.
Schooldays. Children generally learned their trade and other skills from their parents, although they might be appenticed, as young slaves often were. For the children of the well-to-do, many of whom would become scribes, there were formal schools. Schoolrooms—known as "tablet houses"(e-dub. ba, Akkadian bit tuppi)—have been uncovered in Ur, Nippur, Sippar, and the Mari palace, and Sumerian texts describe the curriculum and other aspects of schooling. School was run by a master scribe, the "school father," paid out of the students' fees and assisted by an advanced scholar known as "big brother" and sometimes by masters in particular subjects such as drawing and Sumerian. Pupils were kept hard at work, with only six days a month off, and they were beaten for various offenses, including lateness, speaking or standing up without permission, and poor-quality work. An Old Babylonian text ("Schooldays") vividly conjures up the student's day and his sufferings: rising in haste, he urges his mother to hurry with his packed lunch—two bread-rolls—but arrives late and is punished, not for the last time that day. In the evening his father listens sympathetically to his son's complaints and invites the teacher over, plying him with food, drink, and gifts, while his son strives to display his deference and desire to do well. The teacher is mollified and flattered; eventually he praises the boy's application and assures him of success.
This little story was a popular text that students copied to practice their writing skills. In late-third-millennium and Old Babylonian times, there was a set curriculum pursued in schools; earlier and later the course of study varied but the basic elements were the same. The beginner, seated on a cloth in the courtyard, was taught to form cuneiform symbols in the sand. He progressed to learning how to prepare a clay tablet and reed stylus for writing and began his studies, copying on one face of the tablet the signs that his teacher had written on the other. Schooling since the earliest days around 3000 b. c.e. had been in Sumerian, but by the early second millennium this was a dead language that the pupil had also to learn. Many of the surviving "textbooks" are Akkadian-Sumerian dictionaries. The student copied lists that introduced him to the written forms of many categories of words—plants, animals, professions, places, minerals, and many others. As he became more proficient he began copying more complex texts, including literature, model letters, and law codes, acquiring a knowledge both of grammar and vocabulary and of broader skills and information that would stand him in good stead in his adult career. Surveying and mathematical exercises also loomed large, concerned with such practical matters as the rations required to feed enough workmen to dig a canal of a given length or the time needed to build a siege ramp.
Life was not all work. Little model animals set on boards must have been pull-along toys for small children, and their older brothers and sisters played knucklebones, dice, and board games, or skipped and danced to the music of a flute. Board games had a more serious side, too, being used in divination. Boys might accompany their fathers hunting or practice shooting at a target. Literary skills could be honed in debating contests. On occasion there would be professional entertainers to watch: jugglers, wrestlers, clowns, and acrobats, instrumental musicians and singers, snake charmers, and performing bears.
The teacher was expected to help his students obtain suitable posts in the civil or temple service. Literacy was a valuable asset, even to those not destined to work as scribes. Several kings boasted of their scholarship. Many royal and private family letters survive in archives like those from Kanesh and Mari: They range from exchanges on purely business matters to chatty information on domestic dramas and complaints about parental neglect and filial bad behavior.
Marriage
By her teens, a girl was ready for marriage, although her brothers would not marry for another decade. Marriages were arranged by fathers between their families, often for economic or political reasons; if the girl's father was dead, her mother or brothers would shoulder the responsibility. A verbal contract (riksatum) was agreed on, and in some communities was marked by a party. The groom's family then had to pay "bridewealth" (terhatum), often a lump sum in silver, paid either in full or in installments. The girl might move into her future in-laws' house immediately or might remain under her parents' roof until the wedding, visited by her fiance. During this period the engagement was sometimes broken off, the groom's family often forfeiting the portion of the terhatum already paid.
The marriage was finalized by a feast (kirrum) provided by the groom's family, which could last for several days and might be accompanied by valuable gifts. The terhatum was balanced or exceeded by the dowry (sheriktum or nudunnum) paid by the girl's family, mainly items that would enable the young couple to set up house—domestic utensils, furniture, and textiles, as well as jewelry—and in the case of wealthier families, houses, fields, and slaves. The dowry was administered by the husband, but remained the property of the bride, returned to her if the marriage was dissolved (unless she had committed adultery), used by her after her husband's death, and inherited by her children, or, if she died childless, by her brothers. In some communities, the terhatum was added to the dowry and treated in the same way.
Monogamy was the norm in mainstream Mesopotamian society, although peripheral communities might have different practices. A letter from Mari comments on the three wives who accompanied a Hurrian coppersmith. It was thought proper to allow two or three years before despairing of offspring, but the wife might then select a slave girl to act as surrogate mother for children that would officially be hers. Alternatively the husband might contract a second marriage with the bride's real or adopted sister, a favored option when the first marriage could not be consummated, due to the wife's ill health or because she was a priestess vowed to celibacy. A husband could not discard his sick or injured wife, but childlessness was one of the main grounds for divorce.
A man and a woman in a loving pose, clay tablet from Mesopotamia, third or second millennium B. C.E. (Zev Radovan/Land of the Bible Picture Archive)
A dim view was taken of divorce after the wife had borne sons, and the husband might incur a substantial penalty, such as the forfeiture of his house and property. Men could initiate divorce, but the laws governing women varied. Many marriage contracts in the Old Babylonian period expressly forbade the wife to seek divorce; at other times she might enjoy rights of divorce equal to those of her husband, a fine in silver being payable when this took place. Often her conduct and morals were investigated before divorce was granted, to ensure she was not motivated by an adulterous passion. A divorced wife usually retained her dowry and could remarry if she chose.
Although marriages were arranged, love and desire were both regarded as a natural part of married life. Sumerian poems reflect both, describing the pastoral idyll of the goddess Inanna's courtship of her husband Dumuzi, or dwelling in graphic detail on her enthusiastic sexual activities. Others describe Inanna as a girl, awaiting Dumuzi's visit with anxious anticipation or sneaking out with him for a night of stolen kisses. Later snippets of love poetry also survive. When problems arose there were amulets and incantations to treat impotence, attract new partners, or reawaken a husband's faltering desire. Sexual promiscuity among the unmarried was not discouraged: In the poem "Inanna's Descent into the Underworld," its abandonment is viewed as an unnatural state of affairs:
"No young man impregnated a girl in the street,
The young man slept in his private room,
The girl slept in the company of her friends." (Dalley 2000a: 158)
Homosexuality was permitted as long as the older man was the senior partner, but it was regarded with disfavor as a relationship that did not produce children. Prostitution was an accepted activity, practiced by the city wall or in the harbor area, and in taverns, the walls of which were decorated with explicit scenes of sexual activity alongside prayers to Ishtar. A career as a prostitute was no bar to eventual marriage, although wisdom texts warned that exprostitutes made inconveniently independent-minded wives!
Frequenting prostitutes was tolerated if it did not endanger a man's marriage. Male adultery, however, was an affront to the injured wife's relatives and to the gods, and in some areas or periods it was severely punished. Adulterous married women were universally condemned and were liable to suffer death or other severe penalties. Where suspicion had arisen, it was up to the accused wife to prove her innocence, which she might demonstrate by undergoing the river ordeal; however, a deliberately slanderous accusation would bring an equivalent penalty upon the slanderer, so there was some slight protection against injustice.
Women
On marriage a girl became part of her husband's household, her fate intimately tied up with his fortunes. If things went badly, she and her children could be hired out to work, and in extreme financial trouble they could be pledged as slaves against unpaid debts. A wife's dowry property was managed by her husband, and in some periods and regions, she was confined to the house. Royal Assyrian ladies, from the Middle Assyrian period onward, were segregated in a harem, guarded by eunuchs, seeing only their husbands, children, and female attendants. In this hothouse environment, rivalry and quarrels were common. Some relief from the monotony came when the court traveled, as they accompanied the king. Apart from nomads, however, and itinerant entertainers, such as jugglers and acrobats, Mesopotamian women rarely traveled.
On the other hand, women often enjoyed considerable responsibility, running large establishments, deputizing for their absent husbands, and owning property in their own right. They could bring court cases and be called as witnesses. The Mari letters include a number from queen Shibtu to her husband Zimri-Lim about the palace administration—managing and acquiring stores, running the workshops, deploying new slaves, observing religious rites—as well as discussing personal matters. Her contemporary Iltani, queen of Karana, had to deal in addition with legal cases and petitioners on behalf of her husband. Even the Assyrian royal ladies in their harem could wield considerable political power as advisor to the king—their husband or son. On occasion their authority was overtly acknowledged—for example, the ninth-century queen Sammuramat was named in inscriptions alongside her son Adad-Nirari III.
The wives of the Assur merchants who lived in Kanesh also shouldered business responsibilities, often running the Assur end of operations—super-vizing the textile workshops staffed by slave girls, dispatching consignments of textiles, keeping their husbands informed about the situation in Assur, handling financial matters, and, when necessary, selling off their jewelry—gold earrings, silver bracelets, and rings—to raise capital.
As brides were generally younger than their husbands, many women were widowed while their children were still young. Women in this situation often enjoyed the same business rights as men, managing the family's property on behalf of their sons. The Nuzi archives show the successful and sometimes aggressive business dealings of several such women, who managed and acquired land and engaged in trade.
An exceptional group were the well-born girls dedicated to the service of Shamash in Sippar, and other gods elsewhere, as naditum priestesses. One of the girls' main tasks was to ensure through prayers that the deity was kept aware of their families' interests. Perhaps equally important, however, was the disposal of property, for the dowry that the girl brought to the temple "cloister" (gagum) generally reverted to the family on her death. In return, the nadi-tum could expect to be supported by her father or brothers. She exercised full control over her dowry lands and their revenue during her lifetime, often using the income to buy and sell goods and land, acting as a shrewd and vigorous businesswoman.
The sexual status of naditum women varied. Those in Nippur were vowed to celibacy, but the Sippar ladies could, it seems, take lovers, raising children who were adopted by their brothers, again ensuring that the dowry lands stayed within the family. In Babylon, in contrast, Marduk's naditum ladies were allowed to marry but had to remain celibate, often introducing a real or fictional younger sister as a subordinate wife to furnish the marital bed.
At the opposite end of the social scale were women whose families owned no property and who worked for a living, many of them in the woollen textile industry, especially in Babylonia, where great cities like Ur had enormous factories employing hundreds or even several thousand women and children. Although their main occupation was weaving, they might be required to undertake a variety of other tasks, including agricultural work. Large palace or temple kitchens also employed many female staff, grinding grain, making bread, cakes, and beer, and preparing and cooking various dishes.
Central to the existence of every married woman, however, was the bearing and raising of children. Pregnancy was a dangerous time, when a woman's health was monitored and treated both medically, using herbal drugs, and ritually, with spells, prayers, and divination. The outcome was always uncertain, with the possibility of miscarriage and stillbirth, or of dying in labor. One heartrending letter records the despair of a young wife who has lost her baby in late pregnancy while her husband is far away.
Men
Warfare, trade, diplomacy, or business took many men far from home, and from war at least some were never to return. Communications were slow: The journey between Assur and Kanesh, for example, took between six and twelve weeks, and travelers to more distant lands could be absent for a year or more. Wives might therefore remain for long periods ignorant of whether they were wife or widow; when the latter seemed likely, a wife could contract a second marriage, with the proviso that she must return to her original spouse if he eventually reappeared, leaving the children of her second marriage with their father.
In Mesopotamian society the man was head of the household. Sons remained subordinate to their fathers even after marriage, and family property was controlled by the father until his death. The patriarch's brothers also enjoyed domestic authority and could exercise it in the father's absence.
The Mesopotamian Creation myth (see page 214) recounts how humanity had been created to take on the burden of work that had been too demanding for the gods. It was therefore the duty of every citizen to toil in one field of endeavor or another—from the lowly peasant dredging canals to the king bowed down by the weight of responsibility for the smooth running of society. The majority of the population, rural dwellers and townsfolk alike, were concerned in some way with the land and its produce, whether as corvee laborers, tenant farmers, pastoralists, or landowners, and agriculture was the mainstay of the economy. Although many city dwellers were involved in other occupations, such as craft production or trade, landownership remained important to them.
A man needed to provide himself with children to inherit his property and to care for him in his old age and for his spirit after death. When Enkidu describes the underworld, the spirits of those who died childless are the most pitiful, whereas those with many sons prosper. Nevertheless, by Ur III times, eunuchs are recorded, at that time the castrated male children of working women. Their numbers increased in the second and especially the first millennia when they could enjoy positions of power and responsibility at court, serving not only as attendants in the harem but also as officials and army officers. By this time even high-ranking families might castrate a son to improve his career prospects. Eunuchs were present throughout society, from senior court officials to members of private households and slaves. Most were castrated in infancy; adult castration was a legal punishment, usually reserved for serious offenses like adultery.
The Family in Law
Many of the surviving legal documents are concerned with inheritance and the transfer of property, a major preoccupation. Inheritance arrangements were often detailed and complicated. In general, when a man died, the family's property would be divided among his sons, after providing a dowry for any of his daughters still unwed, and likewise a brideprice for any unmarried son. Although most communities gave the sons equal shares, some allocated a double or larger share to the eldest son, who also frequently inherited the family home. Also passed on were the rights to certain religious or civil offices, along with public duties and outstanding debts.
Dividing land could result in landholdings too small and inconvenient for practicable cultivation. The division was therefore frequently in name only, and the land continued to be cultivated as a single unit under joint ownership. Transferring ownership of such land was naturally a complicated undertaking, and there is some indication that land sales were not permitted, at least in some areas and in some periods. The Nuzi records reveal a legal fiction designed to circumvent this: A debtor could adopt his creditor, enabling the latter to "inherit" the land in discharge of the debt.
Inheritance issues were a frequent source of litigation. To prevent disputes and ensure the desired transfer of goods and estates, a man in his prime could draw up a will, witnessed by his brothers. He generally could not alter the usual inheritance rules for real estate, but he could specify the disposal of his moveable property, making bequests to and provision for individual members of the household; this might include the manumission of household slaves. Chief among the beneficiaries would be his widow, to whom he could bequeath a "gift in contemplation of death" to provide for her through the rest of her lifetime, along with her dowry. Only in exceptional circumstances could a man disinherit his children, and this extreme step had to be approved by the courts.
Given the importance of children, adoption was another major source of legal contracts. A man could adopt the children borne to him by his slave girl, who then shared in the paternal inheritance; if he did not do so these children and their mother would at least gain their freedom after his death. Outsiders could also be adopted by men or women as a way of providing security in their old age, and this contract was regarded as a very serious commitment on both sides. An adopted son could be disinherited but, like legitimate offspring, only with the approval of the courts. If a man repudiated his adopted father, he lost his inheritance and could in extremis be punished by being sold into slavery.
Slaves
Methods of Enslavement. Slaves—wardum in Hammurabi's law code—occupied the lowest rank in society. Textual clues suggest slavery already existed by the later fourth millennium B. C.E. Initially all or most slaves were war captives and generally female. Male prisoners were often slaughtered, although they might be restrained in a neck stock until cowed enough to be used as slaves, or blinded to make them easier to manage. Enslavement was not inevitable, and some prisoners became mushkenum. By Old Babylonian times prisoners of war of either sex were becoming economically more important and were therefore valuable booty. Several letters from Mari and Karana's royal ladies refer to promises of new slaves after a successful military campaign, and most or all of the slaves in the Mari palace workshops were prisoners of war. These captives were initially state property, sent to work in the temples or palaces, but in late Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian times, even private soldiers could acquire prisoners as their private booty, often selling them to wealthier individuals or hiring them out as prostitutes.
By the second millennium there was a flourishing trade in slaves, fed by slave-taking raids in addition to the flow from regular warfare. In Old Babylonian times, tribesmen and women from the eastern mountains were popular as slaves, but the mountains to the north and the desert to the west also supplied tribal captives. Slaves did not come cheap—from 20 to as much as 90 shekels of silver at Old Babylonian rates, compared with around 10 shekels a year to hire a laborer; but in addition to work they could give a return on investment by producing children. Many of the slaves in Mesopotamian households and institutions were the offspring of slaves or of slave women and free men.
Not all slaves were war captives or their descendants. Enslavement was a punishment for certain crimes in Hammurabi's code. A substantial proportion of slaves in most periods were local people whom misfortune had forced into slavery. In times of extreme hardship, for example during a long siege, it was a recognized practice for a man to sell himself or members of his family to the temple or palace to keep them from starvation. In Neo-Babylonian times children could be dedicated to the temple as oblates for the same reason: They were free to practice a craft or other occupation but had to pay the temple part of their earnings.
Debt drove many into slavery. High rates of interest on loans (one-fifth) and on loaned grain and other perishable goods (one-third) meant that it was easy for individuals who suffered a succession of bad harvests or a run of ill luck to spiral into debt. A man could bind himself or a member of his family to serve his creditor for a period of time—fixed at three years in Hammurabi's law code—or sell them to pay off the debt. Unlike foreign captives who were generally slaves for life unless manumitted, debt slaves could redeem themselves
A detail from the bronze panels decorating the great doors erected by Shalmaneser III (858-824 B. C.E.) at Balawat showing prisoners being taken from one of the conquered cities to be enslaved. (Zev Radovan/Land of the Bible Picture Archive)
By paying off the debt. Periodically an enlightened ruler (such as Lipit-Ishtar of Isin or Ammisaduqa of Babylon) would annul such debts, releasing those trapped in debt slavery.
The Late Assyrian kings deported vast numbers of conquered people; unlike war captives, these initially retained their freedom and many settled peacefully into their new homes, enjoying rights equal to those of the native population. But from the reign of Sennacherib onward, their status changed. They now became royal slaves and were distributed by the king alongside other booty, some becoming the property of temples, nobles, and private citizens, and others being conscripted into the army or serving the palace by cultivating its fields and gardens or tending its flocks and herds.
Slaves, Work, and the Law. Kings offered many of their prisoners of war to the temple, and it was not uncommon for private individuals to dedicate slaves as offerings. Slaves might also be transferred from private to state ownership to pay taxes. In the third millennium most temple workers were free employees and temple and crown estates were cultivated by free tenants, and public works were undertaken largely by citizens as corvee labor. Increasingly as time went on, however, slaves worked alongside, or instead of, free individuals on public works, in state factories, and on large royal, temple, or private estates.
Most domestic slaves undertook household activities, but if they had a particular skill they might work as craftsmen or - women in the home or be hired
Three Assyrian prisoners from Phoenicia or Palestine playing lyres; they may have been blinded to prevent them escaping. A detail from the reliefs decorating Sennacherib’s palace at Nineveh. (Zev Radovan/Land of the Bible Picture Archive)
Out to make a profit for their owner. In later times, slaves could be apprenticed to learn a useful trade or skill, such as baking, cobbling, brewing, or weaving. In some cities or in some periods, slaves were allowed to operate in many ways like free individuals, earning an income by working, owning and renting out houses, land, animals, and even their own slaves, and becoming involved in business ventures—but they had to make their owner a regular payment (mandattu), and they could not buy their freedom but could still be sold by their owner, their earning power and accumulated savings increasing the price they fetched. Temple slaves could attain senior administrative positions but likewise remained slaves.
Careful records were kept of the origins and personal details of state-owned slaves, who were housed in barracks. Slaves were rarely physically restrained but were identified by their hairdo or abbuttum (apputtum), probably a style of forehead hair since clearing the forehead was the term for manumission. It was a grave offense, attracting severe punishment, for a barber to shave this off or for anyone to coerce him into doing so or to aid a slave in escaping. On the other hand, at least at Mari, slaves themselves were not punished for attempting to escape, although habitual "bolters" might be chained. A more permanent mark, branded on the forehead or hand, was initially rare but had become usual by the first millennium b. c.e. One text recorded an escaped domestic slave's attempt to turn her ownership mark into a temple brand to improve her lot. Temple slaves received the same rations as free employees—basic food, with extras on feast days, and an allowance of clothing or wool. The conditions of domestic slaves varied, but they enjoyed no legal protection against harsh treatment, and their families could be split up and sold separately.
On the other hand, slaves were often valued and well-treated members of the household, and usually few in number. Letters found at Mari and Karana show that it was thought bad form to get rid of a long-serving slave; one records a combined protest by the other household slaves against such an action, and another was directed by a slave to King Zimri-Lim himself, begging him not to sell her mother. A slave girl who had borne a son to her master could not be sold, and she and her children became free on their master's death, whereas other slaves were inherited by the next of kin. Other slaves might be granted their freedom on the death of their owner; the children of a freed slave automatically became free, too.
World History
