Chapter 9 Real Transformation Starts in the Family: The Public Discourse on Marriage in Late Ottoman Turkey (1908–1918)

In: Transforming Empire: The Ottomans from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean
Author:
Serpil Atamaz
Search for other papers by Serpil Atamaz in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed Close
Type:
Chapter
Pages:
183–209
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004704374_010

Purchase instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):

$40.00
Add to Cart
Redeem Access Token

Abstract

This paper explores the public discourse on marriage and its implications in post-revolutionary Ottoman Turkey by emphasizing women’s voices. Through an examination of the Ottoman-Turkish press, this paper demonstrates how urban Muslim women used the issue of marriage to justify advancing women’s education, employment, and legal status, as well as normalizing pre-marital interactions between the sexes. It reveals that these women not only believed that the political revolution should be accompanied by a social revolution but also tried to achieve this goal by emphasizing the necessity of transforming the institution of marriage as well as the importance of egalitarian families that were based on mutual love, affection, and respect through their writings in the press.

  • Collapse
  • Expand
Series:  The Ottoman Empire and its Heritage, Volume: 80
Cover Transforming Empire: The Ottomans from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean
E-Book ISBN:
9789004704374
Publisher:
Brill
Print Publication Date:
17 Sep 2024
Front Matter
Part 1 Peoples
Part 2 Places
Part 3 Practices
Back Matter

  • Adviye Sıtkı. “Musahebe.” Kadınlık 5 (3 April 1330/16 April 1914): 3–4.

  • Adviye Sıtkı. “Musahebe.” Kadınlık 8 (26 April 1330/9 May 1914): 3–4.

  • Aksekili Ahmed Hamdi. “İslamiyet ve Taaddud-ü Zevcat.” Sebilürreşad 11/275 (December 1329/1913): 226–228.

  • Akşit, Elif Ekin. “Fatma Aliye’s Stories: Ottoman Marriages Beyond the Harem.” Journal of Family History 35, no. 3 (2010): 207–218.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Altınbaş, Nihal. “Marriage and Divorce in Early Twentieth Century Ottoman Society: The Law of Family Rights of 1917.” PhD diss., Bilkent University, 2014.

  • Amin, Camron Michael. The Making of the Modern Iranian Woman: Gender, State Policy, and Popular Culture, 1865–1946. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2002.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Atamaz, Serpil. “Call to the Rescue: World War I Through the Eyes of Women.” In War and Collapse: World War I and the Ottoman State, edited by Hakan Yavuz and Feroz Ahmad, 405–426. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2016.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Atamaz, Serpil. “Reconstructing the History of the Constitutional Era in Ottoman Turkey through Women’s Periodicals.” Aspasia 5, no. 1 (2011): 92–111.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Atamaz-Hazar, Serpil. “The Hands that Rock the Cradle Will Rise: Women, Gender, and Revolution in Ottoman Turkey, 1908–1918.” PhD diss., University of Arizona, 2010.

  • Atiye Şükran. “Var Ol.” Kadınlar Dünyası 25 (14 May 1329/27 May 1913): 2.

  • Aziz Haydar. “Ailede Kadınların Mevkii.” Kadınlar Dünyası 121 (7 December 1329/20 December 1913): 3–4.

  • Aziz Haydar. “Kadınların Say’e İştiraki.” Kadınlar Dünyası 147 (14 June 1330/27 June 1914): 4.

  • B.P. “Beyaz Konferans.” Kadın-İstanbul 4 (February 1912): 8.

  • B.P. “Beyaz Konferans.” Kadın-İstanbul 8 (May 1912): 2–8.

  • Badran, Margot. Feminists, Islam, and Nation: Gender and the Making of Modern Egypt. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995.

  • Baron, Beth. The Women’s Awakening in Egypt: Culture, Society, and the Press. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994.

  • Belkıs, Mükerrem. “İnkılab-ı İctima Esasları.” Kadınlar Dünyası 122 (14 December 1329/ 27 December 1913): 6–7.

  • Berkes, Niyazi. The Development of Secularism in Turkey. New York: Hurst,1998.

  • Booth, Marilyn. “Woman in Islam: Men and the ‘Women’s Press’ in Turn-of-the- 20th-Century.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 33, no. 2 (May 2001): 171–201.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Çakır, Serpil. “Feminism and Feminist History-Writing in Turkey: The Discovery of Ottoman Feminism.” Aspasia 1 (2007): 61–83.

  • Çakır, Serpil. Osmanlı Kadın Hareketi. Istanbul: Metis Press, 1994.

  • Cemal Pasha. Memories of a Turkish Statesman, 1913–1919. New York: George H. Doran, 1922.

  • Dannies, Kate, and Stefan Hock. “Prolonged Abrogation? The Capitulations, the 1917 Law of Family Rights, and the Ottoman Quest for Sovereignty during World War 1.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 52, no. 2 (2020): 245–260.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Dannies, Kate. “A Pensioned Gentleman: Women’s Agency in the Late Ottoman Empire.” Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association 6, no. 2 (Fall 2019): 13–31.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Davis, Fanny. The Ottoman Lady: A Social History from 1718 to 1918. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1986.

  • Demirci, Tuba. “Body, Disease, and Late Ottoman Literature: Debates on Ottoman Muslim Family in the Tanzimat Period (1839–1908).” PhD Diss., Bilkent University, 2008.

  • Demirdirek, Aynur. “In Pursuit of the Ottoman Women’s Movement.” In Deconstructing Images of ‘The Turkish Woman, edited by Zehra Arat, 65–81. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Demirdirek, Aynur. Osmanlı Kadınlarının Hayat Hakkı Arayışının Bir Hikayesi. Ankara: İmge Kitabevi, 1993.

  • Duben, Alan, and Cem Behar. Istanbul Households: Marriage, Family, and Fertility, 1880–1940. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Evliyazade Makbule. “En İyi Nasıl Adamlardır? Bir Zevcde Ne Gibi Meziyetler Arzu Edilir?” Mehasin 7 (March 1909): 635–636.

  • Fatma Aliye. “Bazı Hususat-ı İctimaiye.” Mehasin 10 (September 1325/1909): 737–738.

  • Fatma Neşide. “Lakayıd Erkekler ve Zavallı Kadınlar.” Hanımlar Alemi 1 (9 April 1914): 3–4.

  • Fatma Zerrin. “Terbiye-i Medeniye-4,” Kadınlar Dünyası 147 (14 June 1330/27 June 1914): 6–7.

  • Fatma Zerrin. “Terbiye-i Medeniye-3.” Kadınlar Dünyası 146 (7 June 1330/20 June 1914): 4–5.

  • Frierson, Elizabeth. “Unimagined Communities: State, Press, and Gender in the Hamidian Era.” PhD diss., Princeton University, 1996.

  • Hakkı Behiç. “Mümtaziyat-i Nisvan ve Kadınlara Hürmet.” Demet 7 (29 October 1324/11 November 1908): 105–107.

  • Halil Hamit. İslamiyette Feminizm yahut Alem-i Nisvanda Musavat-i Tamme. Istanbul: Leon Lütfi, 1910.

  • Hanioğlu, Şükrü. The Young Turks in Opposition. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.

  • Hatem, Mervat. “Modernization, the State, and the Family in the Middle East Women’s Studies.” In Social History of Women and Gender in the Modern Middle East, edited by Margaret Meriwether and Judith Tucker, 63–87. Colorado: Westview Press, 1999.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Hayriye Fitnat. “Bizde İzdivaç-2.” Kadınlık 5 (3 April 1330/16 Nisan 1914): 4–5.

  • Hock, Stefan. “To Bring About a ‘Moral of Renewal’: The Deportation of Sex Workers in the Ottoman Empire during the First World War.” Journal of the History of Sexuality 28, no. 3 (September 2019): 457–482.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Kadınlar Dünyası. “Efkar-ı Umumiyede Nisvan Varmış.” Kadınlar Dünyası 36 (9 May 1329/ 22 May 1913): 1.

  • Kadınlar Dünyası. “Kadın ve Hürriyet-i Mesai.” Kadınlar Dünyası 145 (30 May 1330/ 12 June 1914): 2.

  • “Kadınlarımızın Mevki-i İctimaisi.” Resimli Kitap 28 (1 April 1327/14 April 1911): 281–282.

  • Kandiyoti, Deniz. “Slave Girls, Temptresses, and Comrades: Images of Women in the Turkish Novel,” Gender Issues 8, no. 1 (March 1988): 35–50.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Kandiyoti, Deniz. “Some Awkward Questions on Women and Modernity in Turkey.” In Remaking Women: Feminism and Modernity in the Middle East, edited by Lila Abu-Lughod, 270–287. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Karakaya-Stump, Ayfer. “Debating Progress in a ‘Serious Newspaper for Muslim Women’: The Periodical Kadın of the Post-revolutionary Salonica, 1908–1909.” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 30, no. 2 (November 2003): 155–181.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Kashani-Sabet, Firoozeh. “Patriotic Womanhood: The Culture of Feminism in Modern Iran, 1900–1941.” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 32, no. 1 (2005): 29–46.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Kashani-Sabet, Firoozeh. “The Politics of Reproduction: Maternalism and Women’s Hygiene in Iran, 1896–1941.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 38 (2006): 1–29.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Keskin, Tülay. “Feminist/Nationalist Discourse in the First Year of the Ottoman Revolutionary Press: Readings from the Magazines of Demet, Mehasin, and Kadın- Salonica.” Master’s thesis, Bilkent University, 2003.

  • Kurnaz, Şefika. Cumhuriyet Öncesinde Türk Kadını. Ankara: Milli Eğitim Basımevi, 1992.

  • Kurnaz, Şefika. II.Meşrutiyet Döneminde Türk Kadını. Ankara: M.E.B. Press, 1996.

  • Mahdavi, Shireen. “Women and Ideas in Qajar Iran.” Asian and African Studies 19 (1985): 187–197.

  • Mardin, Şerif, “Super Westernization in Urban Life in the Ottoman Empire in the Last Quarter of the Nineteenth Century.” In Turkey: Geographic and Social Perspectives, edited by Peter Benedict, Erol Tümertekin, and Fatma Mansur, 403–446. Leiden: Brill, 1974.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Mehmed Sadi. “Bizde ve Avrupa’da Mana-i İzdivaç.” Kadınlar Dünyası 134 (8 March 1330/21 March 1914): 9–10.

  • Mesudet Bedirhan. “Telak.” Kadınlar Dünyası 148 (21 June 1329/4 July 1913): 5.

  • Metinsoy, Elif Mahir. Ottoman Women during World War I: Everyday Experiences, Politics, and Conflict. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Milani, Farzaneh. “Taj al-Saltana: An Emancipated Qajar Princess.” Middle Eastern Studies 23 (1987): 188–193.

  • Milani, Farzaneh. “End of Empire: Islam, Nationalism, and Women in Turkey.” In Women, Islam, and the State, edited by Deniz Kandiyoti, 22–47. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Milani, Farzaneh. “Women and the Turkish State: Political Actors or Symbolic Pawns?” In Woman-Nation-State, edited by Nira Yuval-Davis and Floya Anthias, 126–149. London: Macmillan, 1989.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Mir-Hosseini, Ziba. “Sexuality and Equality: The Marriage Contract and Muslim Legal Tradition.” In Sexuality in Muslim Contexts: Restrictions and Resistance, edited by Anissa Helie and Homa Hoodfar, 124–148. London: Zed Books, 2012.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Najmabadi, Afsaneh. “Crafting an Educated Housewife.” In Remaking Women: Feminism and Modernity in the Middle East, edited by Lila Abu-Lughod, 91–125. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Nimet Cemil. “Romada Kadınlar Kongresi.” Kadınlar Dünyası 143 (16 May 1330/ 29 May 1914): 4.

  • Nimet Cemil. “Telak.” Kadınlar Dünyası 142 (2 May 1330/15 May 1914): 4–5.

  • Nuri, Celal. Kadınlarımız. Ankara: Kültür Bakanlığı, 1993.

  • Oğuz, Çiğdem. “‘The Homeland Will Not be Saved Merely by Chastity’: Women’s Agency, Nationalism, and Morality in the Late Ottoman Empire.” Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association 6, no. 2 (2019): 91–111.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Os, Nicole van. “Ottoman Muslim Women and Work during the First World War.” In War & Collapse: World War I and the Ottoman State, edited by Hakan Yavuz and Feroz Ahmed, 427–457. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2016.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Os, Nicole van. “Gendering Jihad: Ottoman Muslim Women and War during the Early Twentieth Century.” In Jihad and Islam in World War I: Studies on the Ottoman Jihad at the Centenary of Snouck Hurgronje’s “Holy War Made in Germany,” edited by Erik Jan Zürcher, 153–187. Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2016.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Parla, Jale. Babalar ve Oğullar – Tanzimat Romanının Epistemolojik Temelleri. Istanbul: İletişim, 2016.

  • Pollard, Lisa. Nurturing the Nation: The Family Politics of Modernizing, Colonizing, and Liberating Egypt 1805–1923. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Raife Halil. “Adat-ı Kadimemizden: Usul-u İzdivaç.” Kadınlık 3 (20 March 1330/2 April 1914): 4–5.

  • Raife Halil. “Hayat-ı Zevciyette Muaşeret.” Kadınlık 6 (10 April 1330/23 April 1914): 4–5.

  • Raife Halil. “İzdivaç ve Muaşeret Nasıl Olmalıdır?” Kadınlık 4 (27 March 1330/9 April 1914): 4–5.

  • Reşide Nihat. “Adviye Sıtkı Hanım Hemşireme.” Kadınlık 8 (26 April 1330/9 May 1914): 6–7.

  • Rowe, Victoria. “Armenian Writers and Women’s-Rights Discourse in Turn-of-the- Twentieth-Century Constantinople,” Aspasia 2 (2008): 44–69.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Shanley, Mary Lyndon. “Marital Slavery and Friendship: John Stuart Mill’s The Subjection of Women.” Political Theory 9, no. 2 (1981): 229–247.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Toprak, Zafer. “The Family, Feminism, and the State during the Young Turk Period, 1908–1918.” In Premiere Rencontre Internationale sur l’Empire Ottoman et la Turquie Moderne Institut National de Langues et Civilisations Orientales, Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, edited by Edhem Eldem, 441–452. Istanbul, 1990.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Tucker, Judith. “Revisiting Reform: Women and the Ottoman Law of Family Rights, 1917.” The Arab Studies Journal 4, no. 2 (Fall 1996): 4–17.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Tucker, Judith. Women, Family, and Gender in Islamic Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.

  • Ulviye Mevlan. “Ahlak-Hürriyet-i Mesai.” Kadınlar Dünyası 147 (14 June 1330/27 June 1914): 2.

  • Ulviye Mevlan. “Ailede İmtizac.” Kadınlar Dünyası 151 (12 July 1329/25 July 1913): 2.

  • Ulviye Mevlan. “Zevc Zevce.” Kadınlar Dünyası 128 (25 January 1329/7 February 1914): 2–3.

  • Vedide. “İslamiyette Erkek ve Kız İzdivaçtan Akdem Temasta Bulunmalı mı Bulunmamalı mıdır?” Kadınlık 5 (3 April 1330/16 April 1914): 5–6.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Yuval-Davis, Nira, and Floya Anthias, eds. Woman-Nation-State. London: Macmillan, 1989.

  • Zühre. “İzdivaca Dair.” Mehasin 6 (February 1909): 424–428.

  • Zürcher, Erik J. Turkey: A Modern History. London: I.B. Tauris, 1993.

Metrics

All Time Past 365 days Past 30 Days
Abstract Views 904 904 225
Full Text Views 10 10 2
PDF Views & Downloads 14 14 2