709
was probably the home of the groom, consists of six talents of cop-
per and a bronze dagger. The reference to the custom of Aleppo
seems to indicate that the amount of the bride-price was not fixed
arbitrarily by the parties but was regulated by custom, which obvi-
ously varied from state to state. As indirectly shown by the claim in
AT 17, the bride-price was kept by the bride’s father. The Aleppan
groom in AT 17 ultimately refused to marry his bride, justified by
the execution of her father; the bride-price accordingly reverted to
him.5.1.2 In AT 91 the text explicitly declares that the groom has mar-
ried the bride (lit., he took her as his wife, ana a““ati“u ì¢uz). The
provisions on divorce in AT 92 and possibly also in the fragmen-
tary document AT 94, reveal that the bride or wife is residing in
her husband’s household.5.1.3 These divorce provisions contain the only reference to the
dowry,^38 which is described as “all that was assigned to her belong-
ing to her father’s house” or “all that was assigned to her belong-
ing to her father’s house which was brought in.” They indicate that
the father of the bride could add the bride-price he had received to
the dowry—a custom well known from other periods. The language
of the provisions, namely, “she held back” (ikla) or “she will return”
(utàr) the bride-price, and “she will take” (ileqqe) the dowry upon
divorce, as well as the feminine possessive suffixes referring to the
dowry, suggests that ownership of both dowry and bride-price was
retained by the wife.^39 This is further suggested in AT 92 by the
reference to both bride-price and dowry in the clause regulating
inheritance of the wife’s property after her death.5.1.4 We have already seen that the groom could refuse to marry
his bride, justified by the particular situation described in AT 17,
and could thus get the bride-price back. Once the marriage was con-
cluded, it could also be dissolved at the initiative of either party,
husband or wife (provided, of course, the Hurro-Akkadian language(^38) For the dowry, see Westbrook, “Mitgift,” 279.
(^39) For a different interpretation, see Zaccagnini, “On Late Bronze Age Mar-
riages.. .,” 598f.
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