Legal Sanctions Imposed on Parents in Old Babylonian Legal Sources.

• Author: FLEISHMAN, JOSEPH

One may conclude from an analysis of Old Babylonian legal sources that a parent was not permitted to cancel, without lawful cause, the legal tie between himself and his natural or adopted child by means of the declaration, "you are not my son," or "you are not my daughter." Severe sanctions were imposed on a parent who willfully uprooted his child from his house. The most common sanction found in the scholastic-legal texts and in adoption documents that include a sanction clause against one who deprives his child of his legal status as son and heir is forfeiture of the property of the parent.

Sanctions could be imposed on a parent who tried unlawfully to annul the legal tie between himself and his child by using the formula ul mari atta "you are not my son," or ul marti atti "you are not my daughter." These formulae and others, such as ul abi atta "you are not my father," or ul ummi atti "you are not my mother," are verba solemnia which appear in adoption documents, marriage contracts, and deeds for the acquisition of slaves. The aim of such formulae was to mark the exact time of the change in the legal status between the two parties concerned. [1] S. Greengus has shown [2] that the formula was actually spoken during the Old Babylonian period, and that only after the declaration did an accompanying act have legal validity.

The legal consequences of a parent's declaration "you are not my son," or "you are not my daughter," was the dissolution of the legal bond between the child and the parent. This means that the child could be evicted from the house. We shall endeavor to show that negating the right of a child to be an heir was not the exclusive prerogative of the parent. A parent who infringed upon the legal status of a child in violation of the accepted legal norms could expect to be severely punished. [3]

We have no available Old Babylonian legal texts which attest to legal sanctions imposed on natural parents for illegally depriving their child of the status of son and heir of his father. However, there are many adoption documents from this period that include a penalty clause in which a penalty is imposed on an adopter who illegally damages the status of the adoptee as a son and heir. [4] Basically the legal status of lawful children, whether natural or adopted, was equal. [5] Therefore it is possible to learn from the sanction clauses in adoption contracts about penalties imposed on a parent for denying his legal child. [6]

The earliest relevant documentation known to us is found in the so-called Sumerian Family Laws (YOS 1 28 iv 3-33), an Old Babylonian scholastic legal text dated to the nineteenth century B.C. [7]

(tukum-bi) ad-da-ni u ama-ni nu dumu-[mu]-mes ba-an-na-ab-[dug.sub.4] [ub.sup.7]e-ta bar-ra-e-a (If) his father and mother say to him, "you are not our son," they forfeit ... the property. [8]

Some scholars maintain that this rule refers to adoptive parents. [9] However, since the language of this clause does not contain any indication that it applies only to adoptive parents, one can view the clause as dealing with penalties inflicted on any parent who disavows legal ties to any legal child. [10]

According to the above paragraph, the penalty for a parent who disavows his child is similar to the penalties imposed in article 4 of the Sumerian Family Laws on a child who disavows his parents by saying "you are not my father," or "you are not my mother." [11] In both cases it is provided that because of the infringement of the legal obligations of one party towards the other, the guilty person loses his legal status in his family unit.

Sanctions imposed on parents who wished to annul the legal ties between themselves and their legitimate child are also found in two paragraphs of the Sumerian-Akkadian lexical text ana ittisu which goes back to the eighteenth century B.C. [12]

tukum-[b]i summa

ad-da dumu-n[a-r]a abu ana marisu

dumu-mu nu-me-en ul mari atta

ba-an-na-an-[du.sub.11] iqtabi

e e-[gar.sub.8]-ta ina biti u igarim

ba-ra-[e.sub.11]-de itell[i] [13]

If a father says to his son "you are not my son," he forfeits house and wall.

tukum-bi summa

ama dumu-na-ra umma ana marisu

d[umu-m]u nu-me-en ul mari atta

[ba-an-n]a-an-[du.sub.11] iqtabi

[e ni-g]u-na-ta ina biti u unuti

[ba-ra]-[e.sub.11]-de itel [14]

If a mother says to her son "you are not my son," she forfeits house and property.

This principle of punishing the child or the parent who denies any legal relationship is not unique to the sources just cited, which do not differentiate between an adopted child and a natural child; [15] it is also found in many other legal documents. These documents, which include clauses providing for a penalty if an adopted child disavows his obligations to the adoptive parents, also contain clauses providing sanctions for parents who disavow their adopted child by saying "you are not my child."

The clauses include the following punishments: a) the parent forfeits his property; [16] b) the parent is to give the son his share in the inheritance from the father's house; [17] C) the parent is to give financial compensation. [18]

It is important to note that in all cases where the sanctions clause refers to both parents, the penalty is the same for both and does not differ as provided in the series ana ittisu cited above. The most severe and frequent penalty imposed on those found guilty is loss of property, movable and immovable. On the other hand...