Code of Hammurabi

In Babylonian society, one of the aspects of contracting a marriage was a series of financial arrangements between the groom, the bride, and the bride’s father. The groom would offer a purchase-price for the arrangement, usually a monetary sum to compensate the bride’s father for the loss of productivity to his household entailed in having his daughter move away. The bride’s father would send the bride to her new married life accompanied by a dowry, usually a substantial gift of money, livestock, and/or property (of greater value than the purchase-price), intended to help set up his daughter for a prosperous life in her new household. 

The dowry would become part of the new household’s estate, but in several important respects it would remain her property, not simply folded into her new husband’s property, and it would revert to her sole ownership (or to her father’s) in certain circumstances.

Enslavement in ancient Babylon shared similarities to its practice across the ancient Near East, but it was different in several respects from the institution of enslavement as practiced elsewhere in world history. Enslaved persons could be brought into a household by purchase, by birth to enslaved parents, or by being captured in war.