‘Women’s sexual subordination was institutionalised in the earliest law codes and enforced by the full power of the state,’ concluded Lerner. This included wearing the veil. Married, respectable women in the Assyrian empire in northern Mesopotamia, which existed until around 600 BC, were expected to cover their heads in public. Slave girls and prostitutes, on the other hand, were forbidden from wearing veils. If they broke this rule, they faced physical punishment.
