dowry, but he gained ownership of it only if she died before him.
Thekusatawas an important, indeed perhaps an essential, way of
conferring formal status upon a marriage, as distinct from unions
which, regardless of whether they were permanent or long-lasting,
were of a more informal nature. Did this matter in practical terms?
It probably did, as we shall see.
Giventhatatleast‘formal’marriages, were often in the nature
of business contracts, there doesn’tseemtohavebeenmuch
scope for romantic love as the basis of such unions. Nor is this
reflected in any of the terminology used of marriage; the
Hittite language contains no specific word for‘marry’–anew
husbandissaidto‘take’his wife, and henceforth to‘possess’
her, as in the nursery rhyme where‘the farmer takes a wife’.
We have very few references to love as the basis of marriage.
One is in a hymn to Ishtar, goddess of love:‘You, Ishtar, have
decreed that a man and his wife should love each other and
carry their love to fulfilment.’Another appears in theApologyof
King Hattusili III (see Chapter 19), where Hattusili tells us that
when he married his wife Puduhepa, Ishtar gave the couple‘the
love of husband and wife’.
But the course of true love does not always run smooth–nor
ever did– and the Laws envisage a situation where two young
lovers elope after the girl has been promised to someone else, and
the prospective bridegroom has already made payment of‘gifts’to
her family as part of the pre-nuptial formalities. Thus:
If a daughter has been promised to a man, but another man
runs off with her, he who runs off with her shall compensate
thefirst man for whatever he gave. The father and mother of
the woman shall not make compensation.^4The full implications of this clause are not entirely clear. But it
seems that the girl’s mother and father have no legal claim over her
as far as her marriage is concerned. She’s free to marry whomever
she will, the only stipulation being that her new (?) lover make full
compensation to the jilted groom for any investment he has already
made in the marriage. The girl’s parents themselves are not held
WOMEN,MARRIAGE AND SLAVERY 147