accountable for their daughter’s conduct, evidently because she’sa
free agent, entirely independent of parental authority.
As we might expect, there were a number of cases where
marriages which did go ahead failed and ended in divorce. Divorce
proceedings could be initiated by either the husband or the wife,
though the actual grounds for such action are never spelt out in the
Laws. Presumably adultery provided one of these grounds. And
perhaps as in Hammurabic law the failure of a wife to present her
husband with children was another. Of course, the wife may not
have been the one at fault. But there were no tests for sperm counts
in those days, and erectile dysfunction seems not to be mentioned
in any of the texts – though that mayhave been one of the
problems addressed in rituals whosecommonly assumedpurpose
was to cure impotence (but see Chapter 13). In any case the Laws’
chief concern with divorce is with its property implications, and
above all with the arrangements made for the children, if there were
any, of a divorced couple.
The situation is often particularly complicated in mixed
marriages–marriages in which one of the partners is a slave and
the other free. Such marriages were by no means exclusive to the
Hittite world. (Hammurabi’s Laws cover a number of such cases
in Babylonian society.) And before discussing such marriages, we
should look briefly at the institution of slavery in the Hittite
world.
THE UNFREE INHITTITE SOCIETY
Let’s begin with a general comment on slavery. Slaves were a
component of virtually every society in the ancient world. Indeed,
I know of only one group of people who believed that the
enslavement of a fellow human being was morally wrong–the
Essenes at Qumran. Can you think of any other ancient peoples
who believed likewise? And what of today’ssocieties?Officially,
slavery no longer exists. Unofficially, there are more slaves in the
world now, some 46 million according to a recent Global Slavery
Index, than there have beenin totalin all past eras. Indeed slaves
are far worse off today because in many past societies, like Hittite
148 WARRIORS OF ANATOLIA