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Position of Women in the Ottoman Empire

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POSITION OF WOMEN IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRECourtney L HendricksJuly 15, 2015

Through human history, the power of a woman and her role especially within the Islamic society has been a contentious topic. Many people, when they look at Islamic women and their roles, see a secluded and oppressed sex and which is taken to much inferior to men in most cases. Furthermore, when it comes to issues such as politics, women from the Islamic society are considered voiceless and thus play now important role as they work is seen much in the households chores as well as remaining submissive and faithful and to their husbands and the men around them with questioning. However, this is not the case when we look at the Ottoman Empire as things are totally different from what most people think and perceive about women in the Islamic society[1]. In fact, this has brought about an endless debate in terms of the place of women and their importance especially based on the Sultanate of Women period. This paper dives into the debate as we analyze the actual position that was taken by women specifically in the Ottoman Empire.
Prior to the introduction of Islam religion, women did not have much say or significant contribution in the society as they were basically treated as inferior to their male counterparts. However, things were quite different, especially with the situation in the Ottoman Empire. Here, women enjoyed much freedom and had rights in regards to marriage, inheritance, divorce among other things. Even though men still had much say and authority, women had an option to press charges in court to challenge any actions which they felt that it was deviating or going against the prescribed law in the religion. Most of these women could present their cases and often won most of them[2]. This was a similar scenario during the Ottoman Empire period where most men could afford to marry two or

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