Texts in Conversation
Exodus extends the protection of an earlier wife found in Hammurabi's rules for taking another wife. Continuing support and the right to leave prevent the new marriage from cancelling the husband's obligations to the first woman.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Code of Hammurabi 1:158
Babylonian Legal Text
Ancient Near East
148 If a man takes a wife and she is seized by disease: if he then decides to take a second wife, he shall not put away the wife the disease has struck; she shall live in the house he has built, and he shall support her as long as she lives. 149 If this woman does not wish to remain in her husband's house, he shall repay her the dowry she brought from her father's house, and she may go. 150 If a man gives his wife a field, garden, and house, with a deed for them: if after her husband's death her sons raise no claim, the mother may leave it all to the son she prefers, and she need leave nothing to his brothers.
Exodus 21:10
Hebrew Bible
7 “If a man sells his daughter as a female servant, she will not go out as the male servants do. 8 If she does not please her master, who has designated her for himself, then he must let her be redeemed. He has no right to sell her to a foreign nation, because he has dealt deceitfully with her. 9 If he designated her for his son, then he will deal with her according to the customary rights of daughters. 10 If he takes another wife, he must not diminish the first one’s food, her clothing, or her marital rights. 11 If he does not provide her with these three things, then she will go out free, without paying money. 12 “Whoever strikes someone so that he dies must surely be put to death.
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Notes and References
“... 148If a man takes (i.e., marries) a woman and la’bum-disease then seizes her, and he decides to take a second (woman), he may marry (her), but he may not divorce (lit.: forsake) his wife whom la’bum-disease seized. She shall stay in a dwelling that he builds and he shall support her as long as she lives. 149If that woman does not consent to dwell in her husband’s house, he shall replace the dowry that she brought from her father’s house, and she may leave. ...”
Wright, David P.
Inventing God's Law: How the Covenant Code of the Bible Used and Revised the Laws of Hammurabi
(p. 142) Oxford University Press, 2009
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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