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Use of laws[edit]

The law articles used by the Hittites most often outline very specific crimes or offenses, either against the state or against other individuals, and provide a sentence for these offenses. The laws carved in the tablets are an assembly of established social conventions from across the empire. Hittite laws at this time have a prominent lack of equality in punishments In many cases, distinct punishments or compensations for men and women are listed.^[67][71] Free men most often received more compensation for offenses against them than free women did. Slaves, male or female, had very little rights, and could easily be punished or executed by their masters for crimes.^[67][71] Most articles describe destruction of property and personal injury, to which the most common sentence was payment for compensation of the lost property. Again, in these cases men often times receive a greater amount of compensation than women.^[67][71] Other articles describe how marriage of slaves and free individuals should be handled. In any case of separation or estrangement, the free individual, male or female, would keep all but one child that resulted from the marriage.^[69][71] Another thing to note is that homosexuality is not mentioned in any of the law articles of the Hittite Empire.^[67]

Cases in which capital punishment is recommended in the articles most often seem to come from pre-reform sentences for severe crimes and prohibited sexual pairings. Many of these cases include public torture and execution as punishment for serious crimes against religion. Most of these sentences would begin to go away in the later stages of the Hittite Empire as major law reforms began to occur.^[69][67]