Scholars since the 1820s, following in the wake of such pioneers as Rawlinson, Champollion, and Schliemann, have gradually uncovered and deciphered the records of the Mediterranean civilizations that preceded the classical world of Greece and Rome.

Their work tells us a great deal about long-vanished societies that flourished during remote antiquity in the areas that now comprise Iraq, Iran, Syria, Turkey, Israel, and Egypt. Collections of laws from those regions reflected the household structure and sexual mores of the elite groups that dominated their ancient societies. These ancient prescriptive norms for sexual behavior marginally influenced the development of the Greco-Roman ideas about sexual propriety that underlie so many medieval and modern beliefs about sex. We can begin, therefore, by sketching their broad outlines.