WOMEN UNDER POLYGAMY
originally paid for her. If there was no bride-price, the husband paid her one mina of silver; and in the case of a poor man one-third of a mina of silver.
In regard to faithless wives in the harem, the law was not liberal. The woman who had "belittled her husband," or "played the fool," was sent away without compensation or held as the slave of a new wife. An errant wife was condemned to death by drowning, a favourite Oriental punishment for women.
II. ANCIENT EGYPT
"Among the Egyptians," wrote Diodorus, "the woman rules over the man." The existence of the harem in a nation so distinguished as ancient Egypt for a recognition of sex-equality, is somewhat bewildering at the first thought.
Let us remember that polygamy from the earliest times has been the privilege and the luxury of the rich. It was never the practice of a vast mass of the population in polygamous countries. Therefore, in speaking of such countries, we must not lose sight of the fact that the bulk of women are outside of the harems. It is also necessary that we should recognise the constant recruiting of the inmates of the harem by the importation of alien women.
Hammurabi, the great law-maker of the Baby-
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