Zhuk 1
Sofiia Zhuk
Kimberly Lark
HIST 134
10 May 2026
Babylon and Ukraine
When I was reading about ancient Babylon this semester, two things made me really
uncomfortable. The first one was that women had no say in who they married. The second
one was Law 129, which basically said that if a wife was caught with another man, her
husband could decide if she lived or died. As a woman who grew up in Ukraine and just in
modern times, both of these things felt very wrong to me, and I want to try to explain why.
The reading says that "Sumerians viewed marriage as a contract between two
families and, as a result, the male heads of the two families arranged a couple's marriage"
(Schoolcraft College, "Ancient Mesopotamia"). The woman herself had nothing to do with the
decision. When I read this, I immediately thought about something from my own culture. In
old Ukrainian tradition, if a man came to propose and the woman did not want to marry him,
she could give him a pumpkin. It sounds a little funny maybe, but it was a real tradition - it
was her way to say no publicly. I grew up knowing about this tradition and it always made
me feel like even in the old days, a Ukrainian woman at least had some voice. Still, even
that small power was something Babylonian women did not have at all, and that difference
is what bothered me.
The second thing that made me angry was Law 129. It says: "If a man's wife be
surprised (in flagrante delicto) with another man, both shall be tied and thrown into the
water, but the husband may pardon his wife and the king his slaves" (Schoolcraft College,
"Ancient Mesopotamia"). What got me was that phrase - "the husband may pardon his wife."
Her life was not her own right. Whether she lived or died was totally his decision. She had no
independence. I felt this was not just unfair, it was treating a woman like she was property,
not a person.
