Saturday, November 18, 2017

Surrogacy in an Assyrian prenup

MODERN THEMES, ANCIENT SOLUTIONS: 4,000-year-old prenup pushes for surrogacy in case of infertility. Cuneiform tablet calls for a contractual sex slave to be freed after a son's birth -- and would have prevented the bitter rivalry between biblical Hagar and Sarah. I'm not sure how much relevance this text really has for the legends about Sarah and Hagar in the Bible. But it is of considerable historical interest in itself.

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