11th October – fact of the day

One of the earliest written legal references to a child using violence against a parent appears in the Code of Hammurabi, from ancient Babylon, dated to around the 18th century BCE (some older sources give earlier dates). Law 195 specifically addresses a son striking his father and prescribes an extremely severe punishment: his hands were to be cut off. Historical scholarship on violence against parents identifies this as very early evidence that societies formally recognised violence by offspring towards parents thousands of years ago