charges were brought at the request of the local community, when the inhabitants
perceived a threat to the public image of their village or district and to the moral
code that governed their relations. Thus, in 1705 the voyvoda of Samos intervened
in regard to the conduct of a woman in a village. According to the hüccet, “I
heard that she is not always by herself and she associates with (those who are)
strangers and not related to her” [ mersum Zafira daima kendi halinde olmayub
258
Women in the ottoman Balkans
kendüye ecnebi ve na mahrem olanlar ile ülfet ve ihtilât eyledüği mesmum
olmağla]; consequently he asked the court to interrogate her. The woman denied
the charges, upon which the court asked five Christian clerics who were present
at the proceedings to testify on the matter; they confirmed the accusations of the
voyvoda. It appears that her fellow-villagers had been scandalized by her “loose”
behavior and had asked the voyvoda of the island to intervene.83 The punishment
which the courts imposed upon women publicly accused of prostitution was
banishment from their village or district.84
But who were these prostitutes? In what circumstances did a woman become a
prostitute? From available documents it appears that quite a number of them had
been raped when young and unmarried, and this had been enough to brand them
as prostitutes. It also seems that the fact of having been raped had pushed them
into the margins of society. They found themselves with no other solution than to
consciously turn to prostitution as the only available way of making a living, since
they were excluded from any respectable course such as marriage or work.85
In the foregoing cases, the Ottoman authorities appear to have cooperated with
Christian community leaders—in fact to have acted at the latter’s request. There
can be no doubt that the guardians of morality in the local communities in which
the Orthodox element predominated, such as the Cyclades and Samos, would
have been the notables in association with the representatives of the Church.
On the other hand, in areas with a religiously mixed population such as Crete,
Cyprus, or Macedonia, the desire of the Muslim inhabitants—whether officials or
not—to safeguard moral standards would also have played a part. Besides, there
was the issue of the recipients of the fines: as the crime of zina was punished by
the imposition of fines, the ehl-i örf were interested in bringing people to trial for
sexual offenses in order to collect any fines that may be imposed by the court.86
Thus far we have seen Christian Ottoman subjects turning to the Ottoman court
either with their fiancés or husbands in order to get married or divorced, or alone in
order to claim what they regarded as their due. In most cases the woman appeared
in person before the court and was not represented by a proxy [ vekil], even in the
more “painful” cases such as a charge of sexual assault.87 Regarding the Muslim
women who elected to represent themselves in court, it has been suggested that
they probably belonged to the lower social classes, had no strong family ties, and
therefore had little option but to pay the required sum to the court and defend their
own interests.88 This would also seem to apply to the cases under discussion here:
many of the Christian women who went to court had a rural background—though
this is not a clear indication of their economic status owing to the lack of data.
I do believe, however, that these were not members of the local elite but rather
women without strong family ties and without financial means. The cases of the
women from Samos who brought charges of sexual assault exemplify this: both
were pregnant and came from villages, and their condition would have probably
precluded the support of family members, if they had families.
In the final analysis, regardless of whether or not women were represented by
a proxy before the Ottoman court, it is hard to imagine that the representatives
laiou, Christian Women in an ottoman World
259
of the Church and the community leaders did not object to their going to the
Ottoman court, at least for matters that could be dealt with in the episcopal and
communal courts. We know, for instance, that the Church tried to curtail the
practice of kebin marriage through excommunication and denial of burial, and
there would certainly have been a great outcry against those individuals who went
to Ottoman courts, especially women.89 To appeal to the Ottoman court to resolve
difficult personal or family issues that did not involve criminal responsibility was
to invalidate one of the most basic functions of the Orthodox Church—a function
that had been legitimized immediately after the fall of Constantinople: its legal
jurisdiction over issues relating to religion and involving Christian reaya. Equally,
however, it would not have been easy for a woman to publicize personal or family
problems, because this would have meant that she had not tried, or had failed in
her attempt, to resolve them within the family circle. Having guilty or “shameful”
secrets come to light and automatically become a subject of gossip among other
members of the community to which she belonged would have been far from
pleasant for her or her family. Thus, the Ottoman court was a last resort, one that
potentially offered an immediate and final solution to the problem. By choosing
this option, one would by-pass the family and the internal, Christian criteria;90 this
was perhaps no less “painful” than washing one’s dirty linen in public.
Nevertheless, the women in the documents examined above were determined
to assert their rights, and to this end they turned to whichever judicial system
was advantageous to them—or at least whichever one they believed would be
advantageous. Their ability to make such a choice presupposes some direct or
indirect knowledge of the provisions of Islamic law in addition to customary
and ecclesiastical law; such knowledge could have been gained through social
relations, however superficial these may have been, or by hearing from relatives
how various cases had been adjudicated by the Ottoman courts. Clearly, then, the
communities that comprised Ottoman society were not mutually impermeable.
Knowledge of Islamic law is striking in communities in which the Muslim
element was only represented by the families of a few Ottoman officials, as was
the case on Samos. The fact that Christian women (and men) used the Ottoman
court is even more significant there, as it shows that the institution had been
completely assimilated by the local Christian population despite the absence of
a significant local Muslim element. Christian women who went to the Ottoman
court to contract a marriage with a Muslim or a Christian, to register their divorce,
or to claim their entitlements under Islamic law, who changed their religion if
they thought it necessary, and who brought charges of sexual or other physical
assault—these women were demonstrating assertiveness, demanding their rights
as they thought best given the existing social constraints. When all is said and
done, by making the choices they did, these wo
men were willing to come into
conflict with the local religious and socio-political establishment. Their hope that
the Ottoman system of justice would vindicate them, even when they brought
charges against Muslims who in some cases were even officials, is something that
cannot be overlooked.
260
Women in the ottoman Balkans
Notes
1. I want to thank Professors J.C. Alexander, H. Aggelomatis-Tsougkarakis, and
E. Olymbitou for their valuable comments and suggestions, as well as my
colleagues Dr. Kotzageorgis and Dr. Sariyannis for bibliographic references
and comments.
2. The Ottoman archival material from the island of Samos is located in the
Cultural Foundation of the National Bank of Greece (Athens) in the form of
microfilms, and the originals are in the Archive of the Metropolitan See of
Samos.
3. The şeriye sicilleri of the kaza of Karaferye/Veria are preserved in the
Historical Archive of Macedonia (Thessaloniki) in the form of microfilms,
and the originals are in the General Archives of Veria. I wish to thank the
personnel of both archives for their assistance. Vasdravellis 1954, 2: Arheia
Verias-Naousis (1598–1886) [Veria-Naousa Archives (1598–1886)].
4. Stavrinidis 1976: vols. 1–2; Karantzikou and Photeinou 2003; Papiomytoglou
1995; Mavropoulos 1920.
5. Merkellbach 1991; Theoharidis 1993.
6. Kalinderis 1974; Giannoulis 1980; Sfyroeras 1956.
7. The island of Samos was repopulated at the end of the sixteenth century on
the initiative of the kapudan paşa Kılıç (Uluc) Ali Paşa, who prohibited the
permanent settlement of Muslims there. (Laiou 2002: 37.)
8. For the difficulties and the constraints presented by the study of Ottoman
judicial documents, see Ze’evi 1998 and Pierce 2003: 100–112. For a similar
approach concerning Byzantine judicial documents that refer to sexual
offenses, see Laiou 1993: 145.
9. An example of using the sicil s to reveal the social and economic life of non-
Muslims, and especially the Jewish community of Jerusalem, is Cohen 1984.
See also al-Qattan 1999, especially 434–35. On this subject see also Jennings
1993: 14–39; 1995: 363; 1978: 274–76; Seng 1994: 185, 197; Zilfi 1997: 279;
Gradeva 1997: 55-56.
10. Pantazopoulos
1967: 24–25; Konortas 1998: 295–298, where he criticizes the
“prerogatives theory” regarding the Ecumenical Patriarchate.
11. See
for example the berat of 1755 issued for the metropolitan of Chios,
where direct orders were included for the matters of marriages and divorces
between the Christians inhabitants, in order to safeguard the jurisdiction of
the metropolitan in that field. (Mavropoulos 1920: 37, 41, 42.) See also the
relevant clauses of the patriarchal berat of 1757. (Konortas 1998: 382, 387,
388.)
12. Pantazopoulos
1967: 91–112. For the ecclesiastical and communal courts,
their structure and their relations, see Lykouris 1954: 145–248; Koukkou
1980; Siatras 1997; Tourtoglou 1985; Sevastakis 1986: 18–20.
13. Ginis 1960–63: 243–44.
14. This parameter is also stressed by Pantazopoulos 1967: 107.
laiou, Christian Women in an ottoman World
261
15. Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edition, “Nikah”, 26; Aydın 1982: 1–12; Imber
1967: 87–88. See also Behar 2004: 549–52, in relation to the accommodation
and co-existence of the Islamic mehr and the Turkish custom of ağırlık, i.e.,
the bride price paid by the husband’s family to the family of the bride and not
to the bride herself as in the case of mehr. For the Greek version of ağırlık,
see below.
16. Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edition, “Talak”
17. Zilfi 1997: 270–71.
18. Ibid., 273.
19. T
ucker 1998: 81-87.
20. For
a definition of ecclesiastical marriage, see the Nomokanon of Theophilos,
Bishop of Kampania, written in 1788 (Ginis 1960: 87).
21. Ginis
1960–63: 242-248; Apostolopoulos 1999: 210, 214; for the Byzantine
period see Rallis and Potlis 1852: 1: 295–96 ( Nomokanon of Photios, title 13,
chapter D).
22. Mihailidis-Nouaros
1982–83: 13–14; Bourdara 1988: 156; Diafa 1997: 110;
Ginis 1960: 89.
23. L
ykouris 1954: 205, 206.
24. Mihailidis-Nouaros
1982–83: 10–12; Savorianakes 2000: 50-53, 60. Ginis
also refers to a decision of consensual divorce issued by the metropolitan
of Trikala in 1706. (Ginis 1960–63: 255, n. 7.) It seems that the patriarchal
decision merely confirmed the social realities of the period.
25. The
institution of the mut‘a was accepted by the Shi’is but not the Sunnis.
However, Sunnis actually did conclude temporary marriages without
mentioning in the official matrimonial contract its specific duration.
Therefore, the temporary character of the marriage was a matter of a private
agreement between the two parties. Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edition,
“Mut‘a”; Schacht 1964: 163. The term kebin is Persian, and denotes the bride-
money (Redhouse 1992: 628) or the “rent” paid by a man for the use of a
woman’s genitalia. (Pantazopoulos 1986b: 493.) It is most interesting that in
the Hexabiblos of Harmenopoulos—a corpus of laws compiled by a jurist
named Constantine Harmenopoulos in 1345, which was the basic law code
used by the ecclesiastical courts in the Ottoman period—it is mentioned that
in the “unwritten marriage,” that is the legal symbiosis of a couple not blessed
by a priest, if the man abandoned the woman without justifiable reason, he
had to compensate her. That provision is reminiscent of Justinian’s law and,
of course, the relevant clauses concerning the Islamic kebin. (Pantazopoulos
1986a: 40–41.) For the use of kebin by travellers-merchants, and observations
they made concerning the institution, see Aggelomatis-Tsougkarakis 1992:
342–43 and 392–93, respectively.
26. Pantazopoulos
1967: 94–102. In a Greek translation of the ahdname issued for
the inhabitants of the Cyclades islands by Sultan Murad III in 998/1589 and
published in Zerlentis 1924: 103, it is stated that if a Christian woman wishes
to marry a Muslim man, she must first become a Muslim. This proviso, issued
262
Women in the ottoman Balkans
under pressure from the Orthodox ecclesiastical authorities, was meant to
prohibit the conclusion of kebin marriages between Muslim men and Christian
women, by putting as a precondition the Islamization of the woman. Also, a
hüccet of 1658 issued by the Ottoman court of Rethymno cites the refusal of
a zimmi (non-Muslim) woman to marry a Muslim man (probably a convert)
who intended to ask for her hand. (Stavrinidis 1976, 1: 22.) For cases of kebin
marriage, see also Karantzikou and Photeinou 2003: 54, 60, 119, 121, 133,
143, 144, 156, 159, 160, 167, 184, 204, 224, 231, 237, 255, 258, 274, 294,
298, 318.
27. Pantazopoulos
1967: 57–65. For agriliki see ibid., 62, n. 17. Still, the basic
/>
interpretation of the term is the money or landed property that a future
husband/wife who had already been married once would give his/her future
spouse who was getting married for the first time. See, for instance, Sevastakis
1986: 142.
28. Pantazopoulos 1967: 57–59;
Aggelomatis-Tsougkarakis 1992: 382–83, 388.
29. Ginis 1960–63: 261, 275; see also Ginis 1960: 91.
30. Sfyroeras 1956: 21.
31. Pantazopoulos
1986b: 495; Ginis 1960–63: 250–52. For examples of marriages
between Christians before the kadı see also Karantzikou and Photeinou 2003:
42, 46, 91, 149, 162, 202, 277, 280, 315.
32. Pantazopoulos
1986b: 495. See also Ginis 1960: 85, where severe penalties
were designated in the case of marriages between Christians that violated the
rules of kinship, such as confiscation of property and exile.
33. Gradeva 1997: 58–59.
34. Kabrda 1969: 75–77.
35. Ibid., 77.
36. Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edition, “Resm-i arus”; Alexander 1985: 81,
83, 256, 258, 450; Barkan 1943: 329 ( kanunname of Mora, 1716), 339
( kanunname of Rodos and Kos, 1650). In the kanunname of Rodos and Kos,
the resm-i arus amounted to 30 aspers for widows (non-Muslim or not), and
60 aspers for virgins. (Ibid., 339.)
37. Concerning
the way that the Ottoman courts dealt with cases that referred to
the ecclesiastical-canonical law, a fetva of the müfti of Damascus (eighteenth
century) is quite interesting. It mentions that the kadı or the müfti is not
permitted to interfere with marriages between zimmi s. If the zimmi s, however,
ask from the Ottoman judge to adjudicate a conflict that concerns their marriage
concluded according to their own religious regulations, he is supposed to
adjudicate according to the Islamic law. (Tucker 1998: 49.) Moreover, a fetva
of Ebusuud (middle of the sixteenth century) underscores the importance of
the appeal of the zimmi s to the Ottoman court, in order to get a (unilateral)
Women in the Ottoman Balkans: Gender, Culture and History Page 48