Question

Reflect and Respond

Hammurabi's Code gave different punishments to offenders, depending on which class they
belonged to. Why do you think the law was set up this way?

Answer 1

Becuse Babylonian society, the society to which the Hammurabi Code belonged to, was an extremely stratified society, divided by castes: the royal caste, the priest caste, the merchants caste, the farmers caste, and the slaves caste.

This means that the society was very hierarchichal, instead of egalitarian. All people were not considered equal under the law, like we do today. Poorer farmers were considered to be worth less than a wealthy landowner, or a priest, and an offense by a poor farmer was thought to be more serious than an offense by the wealthy landowner or the priest.