woman could act without her husband’s consent. Those presumably independent
actions may have been limited to the woman’s personal estate and property.
Apart from the governing elite, marriage, according to legal texts, was monogamous.
Bride and groom needed parental permission and parents made the marriage contract.
Widows could remarry without parental permission. Oral betrothals preceded mar-
riage and included an oath but could be dissolved by marrying somebody else or
through withdrawal from the contract. If the engagement was broken without justifi-
cation, a penalty in the form of silver had to be paid. Couples (or bridegrooms?)
received a royal gift at marriage, explicitly women after giving birth. Dissolution of a
marriage could be ordered by the court. If a husband divorced his wife without
grounds, he had to pay her in silver, one mina if she was a first time wife, thirty to
forty shekels if she was a widow; if the wife agreed to divorce, she got only ten shekels.
Grounds for divorce were unconsummated marriage and adultery. The death penalty
awaited a woman who committed adultery, but not the lover if she had not told him
she was married; however, it was at the husband’s discretion to kill or divorce her.
Women’s legal agency is also reflected in the growing number of women seal owners
but, as in preceding periods, remains small in comparison with seals owned by men.
The majority of women’s seals show the mainstream presentation scene with the
“generic image” of a female worshipper led by a protective Lamma-goddess before
an enthroned goddess (Figure 12. 6 ) (on “generic figures,” see Asher-Greve and
Westenholz forthcoming); some women owned seals with contest scenes. In
inscriptions, women are frequently identified as “wife” (dam), some add the husband’s
position or profession; for daughters, affiliation with the father is most common. But
not all women are identified as wives or by patronym, particularly those who worked
for queens or other court women, priestesses, daughters of priestesses, and some
independent women, such as Ninkalla, the midwife of BaU (Figure 18. 7 ). For the first
time we have numerous seal impressions attesting that more women used their seals,
but the numbers are small compared to those of men who sealed documents. Most
impressions of women’s seals are those of priestesses, royal and governors’ wives, or their
servants. For women who did not own but needed a seal, an anionic so-called “burgul”-
seal could be made. Apart from midwife and wet-nurse, professions attested for women
are scribe, governess, doctor, barber (hairdresser), and singer.
Women workers (géme), often with their children (géme-dumu), were employed in
textile production, as millers, straw binders, and in the countryside as field workers,
porters, and during harvest. They received monthly rations of barley that could be
exchanged for bread, flour or a beverage (mostly beer), and a yearly ration of wool or
a garment. The amount depended on qualifications and output but also on age and
status. Women’s average payment was between thirty and forty liters, but the best
weavers were paid up to 100 liters. Old women received a barley ration of twenty liters
and once per year about one kilo of wool, enough for one garment. Middle and higher
ranking personnel, mainly men, got land allotments, that could be inherited by
widows, however, this may have changed with Shulgi’s social reforms when land
allotments were given to state dependent workers either belonging to the lower social
levels or to administrators (Dahl 2002 ). Extraordinary rations of oil, meat, fish, milk
products, vegetables, or beer were distributed either when there was a large surplus or
on special occasions such as New Year. Based on age, children received between five and
twenty liters. Probably at puberty boys were separated from their mothers and followed
–– Julia M. Asher-Greve ––