p3ch2social

Name: Hilary Wright

 * **Theme** || **How does this theme apply to your civilization?** ||
 * Gender roles and relations || * Men dominated public and private life. They made marriage arrangements, decided which family members would have what jobs, and ruled as kings.
 * Few women influenced kings and some recieved an education and became scribes. Others worked as midwives, shopkeepers, bakers, or brewers.
 * Hammurabi's Code recognized adult men as the head of the household and entrusted the men with major decisions.
 * Also, Hammurabi's Code was much more strict on the men, then on the women. For example, if a married women commited adultry, she and her partner would be drown, whereas men were permitted to commit adultry without penaly. ||
 * Family and kinship || * Kings originally won position, but some kings made arrangements for their sons to succeed them.
 * Nobles were mostly members of the royal family or they were close supporters of the king. ||
 * Racial and ethnic constructions || * N/A ||
 * Social and economic classes || * Ancient Mesopotamia had ruling classes of kings and nobles, who usually won their positions at war
 * Kings were so great they were considered offspring of the god. Gilgamesh, a great warrior and hero of Uruk, was two-thirds divine and one-third human.
 * Next were priests and priestesses who were in charge of temples and religious services.
 * The rest of the people in Mesopotamia were in the classes of free commoners, dependent clients, and slaves.
 * Free commoners mostly worked as cultivators on their family's land.
 * Dependent clients owned no land and worked as agricultural laborers for others, paying taxes with their crops.
 * Slaves were either, prisoners of war, convicted criminals, or people so far into debt, they had to go into slavery to pay it off. Slaves also worked as agricultural laborers. ||