section_path: History/Ancient world/Ancient Near East
section_name: Ancient Near East
paragraph_text: Ancient Near East
  
  Many cultures have legends concerning the origins of marriage. The way in which a marriage is conducted and its rules and ramifications have changed over time, as has the institution itself, depending on the culture or demographic of the time.
  
  The first recorded evidence of marriage ceremonies uniting a man and a woman dates back to approximately 2350 BC, in ancient Mesopotamia. Wedding ceremonies, as well as dowry and divorce, can be traced back to Mesopotamia and Babylonia.
  
  According to ancient Hebrew tradition, a wife was seen as being property of high value and was, therefore, usually, carefully looked after. Early nomadic communities in the Middle East practiced a form of marriage known as beena, in which a wife would own a tent of her own, within which she retains complete independence from her husband; this principle appears to survive in parts of early Israelite society, as some early passages of the Bible appear to portray certain wives as each owning a tent as a personal possession (specifically, Jael, Sarah, and Jacob's wives).
  
  The husband, too, is indirectly implied to have some responsibilities to his wife. The Covenant Code orders "If he take him another; her food, her clothing, and her duty of marriage, shall he not diminish (or lessen)". If the husband does not provide the first wife with these things, she is to be divorced, without cost to her. The Talmud interprets this as a requirement for a man to provide food and clothing to, and have sex with, each of his wives. However, "duty of marriage" is also interpreted as whatever one does as a married couple, which is more than just sexual activity. And the term diminish, which means to lessen, shows the man must treat her as if he was not married to another.
  
  As a polygynous society, the Israelites did not have any laws that imposed marital fidelity on men. However, the prophet Malachi states that none should be faithless to the wife of his youth and that God hates divorce. Adulterous married women, adulterous betrothed women, and the men who slept with them, however, were subject to the death penalty by the biblical laws against adultery According to the Priestly Code of the Book of Numbers, if a pregnant woman was suspected of adultery, she was to be subjected to the Ordeal of Bitter Water, a form of trial by ordeal, but one that took a miracle to convict. The literary prophets indicate that adultery was a frequent occurrence, despite their strong protests against it, and these legal strictness's.