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Underlying principles

One principle widely accepted to underlie the Code is lex talionis, or "eye for an eye". Laws 196 and 200 respectively prescribe an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth when one man destroys another's. Punishments determined by lex talionis could be transferred to the sons of the wrongdoer. For example, law 229 states that the death of a homeowner in a house collapse necessitates the death of the house's builder. The following law 230 states that if the homeowner's son died, the builder's son must die also.

Persons were not equal before the law; not just age and profession but also class and gender dictated the punishment or remedy they received. Three main kinds of person, awīlum, muškēnum, and wardum (male)/ amtum (female), are mentioned throughout the Code. A wardum / amtum was a male/female slave. As for awīlum and muškēnum, though contentious, it seems likely that the difference was one of social class, with awīlum meaning something like "gentleman" and muškēnum something like "commoner". The penalties were not necessarily stricter for a muškēnum than an awīlum: a muškēnum 's life may have been cheaper, but so were some of his fines. There was also inequality within these classes: laws 200 and 202, for example, show that one awīlum could be of higher rank than another.

Martha Roth has shown that ideas of shame and honour motivated certain laws.

The above principles are distant in spirit from modern systems of common and civil law, but some may be more familiar. One such principle is the presumption of innocence; the first two laws of the stele prescribe punishments, determined by lex talionis, for unsubstantiated accusations. Written evidence was valued highly, especially in matters of contract. One crime was given only one punishment. The laws also recognized the importance of the intentions of a defendant. Lastly, the Code's establishment on public stelae was supposedly intended to increase access to justice. Whether or not this was true, suggesting that a wronged man have the stele read aloud to him (lines 3240'–3254') is a concrete measure in this direction, given the inaccessibility of scribal education in the Old Babylonian period.

The prologue asserts that Hammurabi was chosen by the gods. Raymond Westbrook observed that in ancient Near Eastern law, "the king was the primary source of legislation". However, they could delegate their god-given legal authority to judges. However, as Owen B. Jenkins observed, the prescriptions themselves bear "an astonishing absence... of all theological or even ceremonial law".