was discovered and published by Pinches.  As far as I can judge, it contained an exorcism against the “knotting of the tag,” and the mention of this subject called up that of the marriage rites.  The ceremony commanded on the day following the marriage was probably a purification:  as late as the time of Herodotus, the union of man and woman rendered both impure, and they had to perform an ablution before recommencing their occupations.

The woman, once bound, could only escape from the sovereign power of her husband by death or divorce; but divorce for her was rather a trial to which she submitted than a right of which she could freely make use.  Her husband could repudiate her at will without any complicated ceremonies.  It was enough for him to say:  “Thou art not my wife!” and to restore to her a sum of money equalling in value the dowry he had received with her;* he then sent her back to her father, with a letter informing him of the dissolution of the conjugal tie.** But if in a moment of weariness or anger she hurled the fatal formula at him:  “Thou are not my husband!” her fate was sealed:  she was thrown into the river and drowned.***

     * The sum is fixed at half a mina by the text of the
     Sumerian laws; but it was sometimes less, e.g. ten shekels,
     and sometimes more, e.g. a whole mina.

** Repudiation of a wife, and the ceremonial connected with it, are summarized, as far as ancient times are concerned, by a passage in the Sumero-Assyrian tablet, published by Rawlinson, and translated by Oppert-Menant.  Bertin, on the contrary, takes the same text to be a description of the principal marriage-rites, and from it he draws the conclusion that the possibility of divorce was not admitted in Chaldaea between persons of noble family.  Meissner very rightly returns to Oppert’s interpretation, a few details in which he corrects.

*** This fact was evident from the text of the so-called Sumerian Laws concerning the Organization of the Family, according to the generally received interpretation:  according to that proposed by Oppert-Menant, it was the woman who had the right of causing the husband who had wronged her to be thrown into the river.  The publication of the contracts of Iltani and of Bashtum appear to have shown conclusively the correctness of the ordinary translation:  uncertainty with regard to one word prevents us from knowing whether the guilty wife were strangled before being thrown into the water, or if she were committed to the river alive.

The adulteress was also punished with death, but with death by the sword:  and when the use of iron became widespread, the blade was to be of that metal.  Another ancient custom only spared the criminal to devote her to a life of infamy:  the outraged husband stripped her of her fleecy garments, giving her merely the loin-cloth in its place, which left her half naked, and then turned-her out of the house