Daily Life In The Ottoman Empire

by Mehrdad Kia

The “proper sphere” of Muslim women as articulated by classical authorities such as Ghazali was “in domestic and sexual terms.” According to Ghazali, the principal function of women was to obey male authority and take care of the household and satisfy their husbands’ sexual desires. In the 16th century, Ottoman ulema who used Ghazali as their source and model declared that “women’s obligations” were “to bake bread, clean up the dishes, do the laundry, prepare meals and the like.” These responsibilities to one’s home were “a matter of heaven and hell for a woman” for if she failed to perform these tasks, she would be “a sinner.” Screened from the gaze of the outsider, decent, obedient, and pious Muslim women had to attend to the everyday needs of their husbands and children without any reservation.

  In Islam, marital sex was viewed as part and parcel of a believer’s obligation toward God and in no way connoted sin for the Muslim believer. While heterosexuality and marriage were praised as natural, normal, and indeed necessary, the official Islam of the ulema was “violently opposed to all other ways of realizing sexual desires,” which were denounced as abnormal, unnatural, and running “counter to the antithetical harmony of the sexes.” The curse of God rested on “the boyish woman and effeminate man, male and female homophilia, auto-eroticism, zoophilia etc.” By rejecting the principle of the natural male-female relationship, all these “deviations” constituted a revolt against God and the divine scriptures. Among all these ungodly deviations, the Quran regarded “male homosexuality the worst,” because it was “the essence of all perversions.” The story of “Lot (Lut) and his city, Sodom, destroyed by God for the sexual sins of its people,” was interpreted as the ultimate warning against a deviation that could lead to the end and destruction of the human family. And yet, in Ottoman society male erotic attraction to males was assumed to be natural and, if not universal, sufficiently widespread to be tolerated.

  The Ottoman concept of sexuality was based on the traditional medical notion that human body comprised four basic elements, namely, air, fire, earth, and water. In this conception, “man and woman were virtually the same being, differing in the balance between the elements and in the degree of development.” Rather than “a separate sex,” women were viewed “as an imperfect version of men, a form that did not reach its full development.” The “vagina, clitoris, and uterus were assumed to be an underdeveloped version of the male penis and scrotum, and women were believed to be able to produce semen in their ovaries and thus contribute to the creation of the fetus.” Because this view “of the body implied that men and women were not inherently different sexually, present-day concepts of same-sex intercourse as radically different from heterosexual intercourse were not part of the Ottoman culture.” Thus, “while homosexual acts were forbidden by law, as were other forms of sexual activity such as incest and fornication, same-sex intercourse was not perceived as fundamentally unnatural and abnormal.” Indeed, “in most circles, same-sex love and intercourse (mainly, but not exclusively, between older and younger men) were perceived as more proper.” Female “same-sex intercourse was known and sometimes mentioned, but largely ignored by the men responsible for almost all writing in the empire until well into the 19th century.” The “general preference for homoerotic ties was present most prominently in mystical Sufi circles” as “love between an initiate and a young disciple, often referred to as ‘gazing upon an unbearded youth.’” By “gazing upon the beauty” of an unbearded boy (amrad), “the Sufi would fill his heart with the attributes of God’s splendor and learn the virtues of unconditional love.”

  PROSTITUTION

  In addition to young beardless boys, female prostitutes provided another important outlet for male sexual energy. As in other societies, “traffic in sexual pleasure” was widespread in the Ottoman Empire “since its early days, and edicts and fetvas were published frequently to try to contain what authorities viewed as a problem for moral order and public health.” During the 16th century, the central government tried several times to clamp down on prostitution by expelling prostitutes from Istanbul, Damascus, and other major urban centers of the empire, “and in a famous edict they were forbidden to follow the army as it marched to and from the front.” Even in state regulations, “procurers were warned against the use of slave girls as prostitutes in hostels around the empire.”

  The practice of punishing prostitutes by banishing them from towns, and at times, even hanging them at the entrance to city markets, continued into the 17th century. While such harsh punishments were hailed by the members of the elite who could support several wives and female slaves, they were opposed by the poor who could only afford cheap and publically available sex. In his Book of Travels, the Ottoman writer Evliya Çelebi proudly reported that in 1652, his patron, Melek Ahmed Paşa, who at the time served as the governor of Rumelia, banished all of the prostitutes from Sofia, Bulgaria. In accordance with Islamic law and “for the reform of the world,” a few of these prostitutes “were strung up like chandeliers to adorn the town at the street corners in the silk market.” To demonstrate the popularity of his patron’s act, Çelebi added that “the notables of the province were grateful that their town was now tranquil and free of prostitutes,” but he had to admit that “for the sake of their carnal pleasures,” the local “rogues and brigands bruited it about that the town’s resources had grown scarce, and there would now be famine and dearth, even plague.” And indeed, the plague they had predicted did begin, devastating the town and killing thousands.

  Common though it may have been, prostitution in the Ottoman Empire “was not usually practiced in formal establishments intended for the purpose.” The “older” and more traditional form of prostitution portrayed in the Karagöz shadow theater was Zenne, “the lone damsel” living “in a rented house in the neighborhood and socializing with men” and symbolizing the “blurred boundaries between companionship and sexual favors.” It was only in the second half of the 19th century that the brothel “as a commercial enterprise” and a new space for male-female encounters emerged. Indeed, throughout the 19th century, as the European urban centers of the empire grew in size and population and a “culture of public parks, cafés, beer gardens, and dance halls” spread, prostitution “assumed new proportions” and emerged as a “major industry.”

  In 1879 in Salonika, local journalists “denounced the ‘depraved women’ who haunted the city’s beer-halls, and demanded they be driven away,” and a year later, “Christian, Jewish and Muslim community leaders protested to the municipality at their presence in the heart of the city,” but by 1910, “girls of all races and religions were working its more than one hundred brothels in a separate quarter near the railway” and “neither the rabbis nor the other notables of the city seemed very concerned about the problem.” According to one source, there were three types of prostitutes: “the woman who had her own room, the woman who went to the room of her client, and those who consorted in the open because woman and client were both too poor to rent rooms.” This last category “included youths from villages who had saved up in order to walk many kilometers to the town for no other reason than sex.”

  In addition to the brothel, the second half of the 19th century witnessed the emergence of a new phenomenon in Ottoman society, namely, the practice of keeping a mistress or the woman who lived in a clandestine apartment and served the unique sentimental and sexual needs of her lover. Traditional Ottoman society had developed its own unique outlets for males who wished to have extramarital sex. In accordance with the Islamic law, “men could marry several women; richer men could own slaves and exploit them sexually; many public baths also functioned as meeting places for same-sex encounters,” but as “slavery declined in the 19th century and polygamy was frowned on in certain urban circles,” the new institution of mistress “often called metres (from French maitresse)” appeared and took over from Zenne, the neighborhood’s “lone damsel.” The brothels of “the fashionable streets of Pera, Istanbul’s urban center, were now in need of new venues
for extramarital and premarital encounters of the modern kind.” According to the Islamic law, the punishment for an adulteress was death by stoning. Various schools of Islamic jurisprudence, however, introduced provisos, which made inflicting such harsh punishment in effect impossible. That “adultery had in fact been committed had to be proved through the testimony of at least four male witnesses, and a woman accused by her husband of adultery could evade punishment by denying the allegation and basing her denial on a solemn oath.” This “particular ruling was commonly adhered to in Ottoman jurisdiction where kadis generally refrained from deciding that adultery had been formally proven.” When residents of a neighborhood surprised a couple engaged in intercourse, “the verdict would usually be one of ‘alleged adultery’ and a prison term and/or condemnation to the galleys would be imposed.” Women “who bore illegitimate children or cohabited out of wedlock,” however, “were never regarded with tolerance, and urban security officers were empowered to keep an eye on them,” or place them in the custody of the local police. To reduce the potential for extramarital relationships, every effort was made to “keep unmarried men out of residential districts.”

  GIVING BIRTH

  Among the Ottoman elite, astrologers and diviners were asked to take the woman’s horoscope and determine whether she should get pregnant and if so, when. At times, they warned the wife against pregnancy by predicting that she would suffer and that in the end she would die in the childbirth. Sometimes, such warnings alarmed and frightened the wife to the point that she would not allow her husband to approach her. Regardless, the news of a woman’s pregnancy was welcomed with joy and a great deal of trepidation. In rich and powerful households, the servants celebrated the news of a pregnancy because whenever the lady of the house gave birth, she distributed money and gifts to the members of her household.

  Highly skilled midwives were indispensable to childbirth. Women who had acquired considerable experience and skill in delivering children were greatly respected at all levels of Ottoman society. Many families had their own favorite midwife, in whom they had developed enormous confidence. When the woman’s labor had reached the final stage, the midwife sat her on a chair with side arms, a high back, and “a seat scooped out to facilitate the delivery of the child.” Just prior to the appearance of the child’s head, the midwife uttered the tekbir, or “God is great.” With the arrival of the child, the midwife and all the women present proclaimed the şehadet: “I bear witness that there is no god but God, I bear witness that Muhammad is the messenger of God.” Then the midwife washed the newborn in warm water and cut the umbilical cord.

  To protect the mother from evil eye, a copy of the Quran, which had been installed in an embroidered bag, was placed at the head of the couch. At its foot hung “an onion impaled on a skewer, wrapped in red muslin and ornamented with garlic and blue beads.” When the mother had been dressed up, her husband came to visit his wife and the new baby. He held the child toward Mecca and uttered the Muslim’s declaration of faith in his right ear: “I bear witness that there is no god but God. I bear witness that Muhammad is the messenger of God.” He then chanted the bismillah (“In the name of God”) in the baby’s left ear and three times announced the child’s name. Shortly after a successful delivery, and sometimes the day after the baby was born, a messenger bearing the good news visited the homes of relatives and friends. At each home, he was rewarded with a tip.

  Childbirth in the Ottoman Empire could be extremely dangerous—even when the woman giving birth was a member of the Ottoman ruling family. In his writings, the Ottoman traveler Evliya Çelebi described the pregnancy of Kaya Sultan, the daughter of Sultan Murad IV, who was married to Evliya’s patron, Melek Ahmed Paşa. As the time for delivery arrived, close female relatives and friends, and all the experienced women and skilled midwives, arrived. Forty Quran recitals and 4,000 invocations of the prophet Muhammad were recited, and after she had given birth to a daughter, her husband gave away 10 purses of his own and 40 purses of Kaya Sultan’s money to the poor and the needy, as alms and a sincere expression of gratitude. Melek Ahmed Paşa also “clothed 500 men in all sorts of garments and they responded by showering him with benedictions.” But as Çelebi had to admit, God did not answer these prayers and “the placenta,” which was “supposed to come down the uterus and exit the mother’s womb as the afterbirth,” remained “stuck in the womb.” The women and the midwives placed the Kaya Sultan “in blankets and shook her mercilessly.” Twice “they suspended her upside down,” and they “filled a honey barrel with orange-flower water and put her inside.” To make a long and sad story short, the women “tortured” Kaya Sultan “for three days and nights” without finding a remedy. Finally, “the bloody midwives came with their arms smeared in almond oil and stuck their oily arms up into the sultana’s uterus all the way to their elbows” and “brought out a piece of skin.” But they were not willing to release their patient. One midwife insisted that there was still some skin left inside and “stuck her hand up the vagina and brought out several items that looked like pieces of wet skin.” At last, four days after giving birth to a girl, the princess died.

  If the delivery moved along without any complications and if the mother was well enough to receive guests, a reception was organized following the birth. Female relatives and friends were invited to visit the mother and the baby. Every guest arrived knowing that, according to the prevailing custom, she could not admire the baby or praise his/her beauty and vigor, as this could invoke the evil eye and undermine the fragile health of the newborn. In fact, the guests tried to ignore the baby, who lay on a cushion of embroidered satin, or called him/her “an ugly thing,” although they often brought charms, cookies, and candies, as well as gold and silver pieces for the infant.

  During the reception, the attention of the guests was focused primarily on the mother. Coffee, sherbets, and sweetmeats were served, while women played a variety of musical instruments and sang happy songs. When the reception ended and the guests departed, the midwife “fumigated the room against an evil eye they might have brought in by throwing into the brazier a clove for each guest,” and if “one of the cloves exploded, that meant the evil eye was indeed present.” At times, to exorcise the house, the midwife threw into the brazier “a strand of the mother’s hair and a piece of the child’s (if it had any) and, if it could be secured, a scrap of the clothing of the person suspected.” While these were burning, she prayed and recited incantations.

  The mother rested for nearly a week. During this period, she could not drink water but only sherbets. At the end of the seventh day, the family read to the child the Mevlüd, or the poem celebrating the birth of the prophet Muhammad. The mother’s bed was removed, and the baby’s maternal grandmother delivered a wooden cradle. A urinal was also provided, “which consisted of a tube that led from between the baby’s legs to a receptacle.” Now, the life of a normal infant began with the mother gently singing lullabies. Attendants and servants (if the woman was from a wealthy family) burned incense day and night to ward off the evil eye.

  As late as the second half of the 19th century, Turks believed that a woman who had given birth to a child was “dangerously exposed” to evil spirits for 40 days, and it was, therefore, “not safe for her to be left alone for a moment.” If the woman “was poor and had no servants a neighbor would come in to stay in her room and would leave a broom behind the door if called out in an emergency;” the broom kept the evil spirits away. To ensure the health of the mother and protect her from dangerous spirits, a copy of the Quran was placed on her pillow. Additionally, she wore a red ribbon on her hair, and every evening, incense was “burned beside her to keep the evil ones at a distance.” After 40 days, during which she had been watched over by a midwife, female relatives, and friends, as well as servants and attendants, the woman left her home for a public bathhouse. On her walk to the bathhouse, the new mother was accompanied by her own mother, female relatives, numerous friends, and the midwife, who carried t
he baby in her arms. Once at the bathhouse, the mother was washed and bathed. When she had finished the mother’s bath, the midwife began to work on the child. Then she soaped and rinsed the baby.

  During various intervals gypsies danced, and sweetmeats, sherbets, and coffee were served. At times, the celebrations and festivities at the bathhouse took up an entire day. As the members of the ruling class built homes, which included private bathhouses, the women of the upper classes invited their relatives and friends to their home to celebrate the 40th-day bath.

  ROYAL BIRTHS

  At the imperial palace, the ceremonies surrounding the birth of a prince or a princess followed many of the same customs and ceremonies that were organized among the ordinary subjects of the sultan. The women of the royal family had their own trusted midwives who were called in when a pregnant wife of the sultan went into labor. As with the women outside the palace, the mother was seated on a couch that, unlike the couch of lower classes, “was draped in red satin embroidered in rubies, emeralds, and pearls.”

  Three cradles were presented to the mother and her newly born child as gifts. The first came from the mother of the sultan, the second from the grand vizier, and the third was presented by the chamberlain of the imperial treasury. A procession delivered each cradle to the royal harem. With each cradle, the sender attached numerous gifts. For example, the cradle sent by the mother of the sultan was accompanied by “a handsome quilt and an embroidered coverlet,” while the cradle presented by the grand vizier carried jewels and, “if the child was a boy,” “an aigrette.” The cradles and the gifts were presented to the ağa of the house of felicity who presented them to the sultan before carrying them into the imperial harem. The men who carried the cradles and gifts in each procession received robes of honor, and even gifts if they were deemed to be appropriate.