Debt: The First 5000 Years - autonomous learning

NOTES 415
are also to be found in Charles-Edwards
1993:478-85.
22. Gerriets 1978:53.
23. If you had lent a man your horse or
sword and he didn't return it in time for
a battle, causing loss of face, or even if a
monk lent his cowl to another monk who
didn't return it in time, causing him not to
have proper attire for an important synod,
he could demand his honor price (Fergus
1988:118).
24. The honor price of Welsh kings
was far higher (Ellis 1926:144).
25. Provincial kings, who ranked
higher, had an honor price of 14 cumals,
and in theory there was a high king at
Tara who ruled all Ireland, but the position
was often vacant or contested (Byrne
1973).
26. All of this is a simplification of
what's in fact an endlessly complicated
system, and some points, especially concerning
marriage, of which there are several
varieties, with different integrations
of brideprice and dowry, remain obscure.
In the case of clients, for example, there
were two initial payments by the lord, the
honor price being one of them; with "free
clients," however, the honor price was not
paid and the client was not reduced to
servile status, (See Kelly 1988 for the best
general summary.)
27. Dimetian Code 11.24.12 (Howe!
2oo6:559). A similar penalty is specified
for the killing of public officials from certain
districts (Ellis 1926:362).
28. "There is no evidence that goods
themselves could be assigned prices. That
is, while Irish moneys could quantify the
status of an individual, they were not used
to quantify the value of goods." (Gerriets
1985=338).
29. Sutton 2004:374·
30. Gallant 2000. One might also consider
here the phrase "affair of honor," or
for that matter, "honor killing"-which
also make clear that such sentiments are
hardly confined to rural Greece.
31. In fact, one could just as easily turn
the question around, and ask: Why is it so
insulting to suggest that a man's sister is
trading sex for money in the first place
This one reason I say that concepts of
honor still shape our perceptions in ways
we're not aware of-there are plenty of
places in the world where the suggestion
that a man's wife is trading sex for profit,
or that his sister is engaged with multiple
partners, is more likely to be greeted with
bemused good humor than with murderous
rage. We've already seen examples in
the Gunwinggu and the Lele.
32. Obviously I am distinguishing the
term here from the broader sense of patriarchy
used in much feminist literature,
of any social system based on male subordination
of women. Clearly the origins of
patriarchy in this broader sense must be
sought in a much earlier period of history
in both the Mediterranean and Near East.
33· The "Semitic infiltration" model is
already to be found in such classic sources
as Saggs (1962). Generally speaking, the
pattern seems to be one of periodic urban
crisis, the near-breakdown of riverine society
being followed by revival, apparently
after the advent of a new wave of Semitic
pastoralists (Adams et al. 1974).
34· Rohrlich 1980 is a compelling
example.
35· This is of course a vast simplification
of a thesis mainly identified with the
anthropologist Jack Goody (1976, 1983,
1990). The basic principle is that dowry
is not so much a payment by the bride's
father (it might come equally from both
sides) but a kind of premature inheritance.
Goody has had very little to say about
Mesopotamia, though, and that little
(1990:315-17) focuses almost exclusively
on upper-class practice.
36. Wilcke 1985, Westbrook 1988,
Greengus 1990, Stol 1995:125-27. For
Mari: Lafont 1987; for Old Babylonian
practice: Greengus 1966, 1969; for Nuzi,
Grosz 1983, 1989.
37· Our best sources are from the city
of Nuzi c1500 sc, though Nuzi was atypical
in certain ways, mainly due to Hurrian
influence. There, marriage payments