Women's rights in Mesopotamia were not equal to those of men.
But in early periods women were free to go out to the marketplaces, buy and sell, attend to legal matters for their absent men, own their own property, borrow and lend, and engage in business for themselves.

High status women, such as priestesses and members of royal families, might learn to read and write and be given considerable administrative authority.
Numerous powerful goddesses were worshiped; in some city states they were the primary deities.

Women's position varied between city-states and changed over time.
There was an enormous gap between the rights of high and low status women (almost half the population in the late Babylonian period were slaves), and female power and freedom sharply diminished during the Assyrian era. The first evidence of laws requiring the public veiling of elite women come from this period.