Abstract
AbstractBased on an analysis of marriage contracts, this paper argues that at the time of the Persian conquest (539 BCE) Babylonians practiced two types of marriage depending on their social status. Non-elite families negotiated different terms of marriage than elite families, in three areas: bridal wealth, household creation, and regulations about adultery and divorce. However, these divergent marriage practices became less pronounced and eventually obsolete in the course of the Persian period. This article first presents the evidence for the two marriage types and then seeks to find an answer, albeit a partial one, to the question why these traditions changed from c. 490 BCE onwards.
Highlights
This paper re-examines the corpus of Late Babylonian marriage contracts and related texts, published by Martha Roth in 1989 and since expanded with new editions by Cornelia Wunsch and others
Based on an analysis of marriage contracts, this paper argues that at the time of the Persian conquest (539 BCE) Babylonians practiced two types of marriage depending on their social status
This article first presents the evidence for the two marriage types and seeks to find an answer, albeit a partial one, to the question why these traditions changed from c. 490 BCE onwards
Summary
This paper re-examines the corpus of Late Babylonian marriage contracts and related texts, published by Martha Roth in 1989 and since expanded with new editions by Cornelia Wunsch and others. It will be argued that Babylonians practiced two chief types of marriage in that period, depending on the couple’s social station: elite families married differently from non-elite families. These differences pertained to various aspects of marriage, including bridal wealth, household creation, and regulations about adultery and divorce. The marriage type that had previously been associated with the elite segment of society became the standard for all These findings present us with a well-documented instance of long-term societal change across the imperial eras of Babylonian history, when southern Mesopotamia was successively under Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian rule.
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