stylistic:tone
Mesopotamia

Women in ancient Sumer could buy, own, sell, and inherit property. They could engage in commerce, and testify in court as witnesses. Nonetheless, their husbands could divorce them for mild infractions, and a divorced husband could easily remarry another woman, provided that his first wife had borne him no offspring. Female deities, such as Inanna, were widely worshipped. The Akkadian poet Enheduanna, the priestess of Inanna and daughter of Sargon, is the earliest known poet whose name has been recorded. Old Babylonian law codes permitted a husband to divorce his wife under any circumstances, but doing so required him to return all of her property and sometimes pay her a fine. Most law codes forbade a woman to request her husband for a divorce and enforced the same penalties on a woman asking for divorce as on a woman caught in the act of adultery. Some Babylonian and Assyrian laws, however, afforded women the same right to divorce as men, requiring them to pay the same fine. The majority of East Semitic deities were male.