Evil Empire?!

this is how Evil the Ancient Persians were, looking at achievements of this Evil empire... human rights was first used by Persians, a little bit of an example of this.

Early Fame of the Laws of the Persians

The First Lawgiver
The Laws of the Medes and Persians have acquired universal fame; and the following pages will show how fully deserved that fame was. Iranian history starts in the beginnings of human life on earth, and yet the first Iranian ruling house was a dynasty of lawgivers. Hence Iranian law began to take shape ever since humanity started forming itself society, and indeed that happened far far away in the past when we consider that man has been living on this globe for over ten million years, or probably for much more many ages than that huge period of time.

Although the rulers of the first ancient royal house of Iran have all been distinguished as lawgivers, the first personage to have rendered special service in framing and codifying laws was Prince Uruvakhshaya, the brother of the immortal hero Krsaspa (Garshasp) and the son of King Thrita, the father of medicine. They were the immediate descendants of great Yima, the brilliant antediluvian monarch. This definitely shows that Law started in Iran in the beginnings of human history.

It is apparent that customs and laws would have to be recognised immediately the primitive men formed themselves into social units. Then wise men would appear and give them laws as necessity arose. Hence apparently jurisprudence should have a very ancient history in all annals of humanity, and every civilized nation of antiquity must have had a fair system of laws to guide and govern it.

The Ancient Laws of Iran: Their Wide and Varied Scope
It is apparent however that the more ancient civilizations of Iran, China, India and Egypt should have had earlier systems of law. The laws of the Vendidad among the Iranians and the laws of Manu among the early Indians are well-known. But it is not equally known that the laws of the Vendidad formed only a fragment of the vast jurisprudence of the ancient Iranians. Since the days of Zarathushtra when human knowledge was raised into the sanctity of religion and formulated into twenty-one Nasks or Holy Books, one third of that great knowledge comprised Law, one-third Science, and one-third pure Religion.

The Books of Law dealt with Court and Magisterial Law, Law of Accusations, Law for Injuries to Person and Property; Laws pertaining to Theft, Misappropriation and Cruelty to Animals; Laws applying to Soldiers and Military Organisations; Church Law, Family Law and Law of Pedigree and Descent; Law applying to Medical Practice; Law of Business Transactions in relation to Property, Animate and Inanimate; Laws relating to Debt and Interest, the other Mutual Obligations; Laws of Purity, Health and Sanitation, Private and Public; Laws applying to the Cultivation of the Soil and Colonizing Schemes; and finally, the Law of the Heavenly Kingdom and the Divine Government of the Universe.

The Family

Honured position of the Father and the Mother of the Family
Both in regard to the Lord and Lady of the House and other married couples in the joint family group, the privileges and duties assigned to fathers and mothers, equally applied to them all, subject to the superior jurisdiction of the former as determined by the family law of the ancient Iranians. And thatwise too the privileges and duties assigned to mothers in the old Iranian household, again show the honoured, responsible and high position of woman in old Iranian society.

The Duties and Privileges of the Husband and the Father
An Iranian was habitually as well as by intuition a loving husband and affectionate father. Still law had also ordained that he would not deal otherwise with his wife and children. He was the natural guardian of his wife till she lived, of his son till he came of age, and of his daughter till she married. And this duty he discharged intuitively as well as under command of law in a way as to give an air of sanctity, peace, beauty and cheer to the Iranian household.

Both parents and children had mutual responsibilities and privileges. The father was bound to use his property first on the needs of his family: and so he could not give it away as gift or in charity if that deprived his wife and children of proper maintenance, and even if he should do so with the wife's sanction law would intervence and prevence him from doing any such thing, so that even if such gift was already made and given away, it was to be withdrawn under the compulsion of law. So again, a father who criminally neglected maintenance and guardianship of his child had to make good the expense to any one else who fulfilled that duty towards it.

If however the father was in want and the wife and children had some property of their own the father was privileged to take a legitimate portion of it for his own use. It is apparent however that this would not be permitted to the extent which would deprive them of their own means of livelihood; whereas when he could avail of such privilege without causing inconvenience to others he had to return in principal what he had thus taken, when he found the means to do so.

Disinherison of Children not permitted to the Iranian Father
The father was obliged to assign his property to his only child and was required to place it under an executor when that was necessary, and if the child was guilty of misbehaviour he was required to put it in trust for such which trust the child was not allowed to challenge afterwards. It would seem that this interpretation of the text here is more probable than that of taking this as a case of disinherison, which the Roman law had prescribed for undutiful children. Still when the father was an integral part of the joint family and the joint family property was enough to maintain his wife and children, he could dispose of a personal property of his, such as was acquired by gift, in any way he chose.

Father, as his child's guardian, had the right to decline to allow it a gift by another; but when he allowed it, he had to preserve it intact till the child came of age and took it over.

The Laws of the Ancient Persians
By: S. J. Bulsara, From: The Laws of the Ancient Persians, Bombay, 1937