5.1.3 Formation
5.1.3.1 Following a contractual agreement between the heads of
two families, the groom(’s family) brings gifts (níºg-mussax + verb ak,
ter¢atum+ verb wabàlum), a kind of “bridewealth,” to the house of
the bride’s father or guardian.^130 Breach of the contract leads to lit-
igation: Ur-lugal.k swears an oath before the saºgºga of Isin not to
raise claims against Nin-gula and declares under oath: “A husband
of her choice (lit.: heart) may marry Ningula. I certainly shall not
hinder her!”^131 He therefore had a right to marry her (not a right
to her),^132 a right resulting from a marriage contract, which he now
relinquished.^133 This would have occurred before consummation, in
the state modern scholars call “inchoate marriage.”^1345.1.3.2 Iri-kagina.k’s edicts revoke payments to be made to the
steward, the Great Vizier and an abgal-priest after someone “poured”
kohlon a head—a symbolic act of anointing to be understood as a
process of the formation of marriage.^135 Although Iri-kagina.k also
claims to have abolished it, the mention of “silver of having taken
a spouse” (kù dam tuku-a) in a Sargonic list of commissioner’s fees
from ΩGirsu points to a continued use of payments to the adminis-
tration for (the approval of a?) marriage at Laga“.^1365.1.4 Marital property
5.1.4.1 The relief engraved on the U“umgal Stele (ED I) shows a
woman and a man (U“umgal) of equal height meeting at a door,(^130) Falkenstein, Die neusumerischen.. ., 103f., has argued convincingly that origi-
nally these gifts were meant for the wedding feast. The earliest example is found
in the Fàra text TS”515 rev. ii 3–5: “5 pound of wool, price for fattened pig(s),
is the bridewealth (níºg-mussax) of 1 sister”; see Edzard, “Fàra.. .,” 176. An Old
Akkadian document from E“nunna (MAD 1 169) lists the ter¢atumbrought by a
man to a woman and a man in the presence of witnesses: sheep, silver, several gar-
ments, pigs, oil, malt, wool, shoes, and unidentified objects. This list demonstrates
that the Sargonic ter¢atumis still far from the cash payment of Old Babylonian
times and much closer to the Neo-Sumerian níºg dé-a and níºg-mussaxsá.
(^131) SRU 85.
(^132) Wilcke, “Einige Erwägungen...,” 157f.
(^133) Since neither parents nor a guardian are mentioned, Ningula must have been
an independent woman.
(^134) Westbrook, Old Babylonian.. ., 34–38.
(^135) Following Hru“ka, “Die innere Struktur...”
(^136) ITT 2 2917; see Falkenstein, Die neusumerischen.. ., 105; Wilcke, “Familien-
gründung.. .,” 253.
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