The Place Of Women

The on area in which Ataturk’s reforms have met the most stubborn resitance is in the Turkish attitude towards women. Traditionally, Muslim turkish women were totally subservient to men. They had virtually no rights; a woman’s role was to cook for her husband, clean his house, work in his fields, bear him sons, and keep quiet. she could not vote, or inherit property, or ask for a divorce, or even object if her husband tok other wives as well. In an Islamic court the word of one man was queal in value to taht of two women. Girls of thirteen and younger were bought and sold for cash as wives. And those who couldn’t be sold as wives were frequently sold to wealthy families as domestic help.

Ataturk changed all that, at least in law. Female suffrage was intoduced, polygamy was aoblished, women were given the right to institute divorce proceedings and to have custody of their children, inheritance rights were established as well asequal rights before a court of law, the “selling” of wives was prohibited and a minimum age for marriage was decreed.

As far-reaching as these refors were legally, they failed to reach very far into the hearts and minds of most Turkish men – or women, for that matter. The women, by and large, still defer unquestioningly to their menfolk. The women still do all of the domestic chores – and most of the work in the fields as well. In fact, two of the most familiar images as one travels through Turkey are of groups of women stooped over at work in the fields shile, just down the road, the men sit outside a tea-house sipping tea and paying backgammon. And on those rare occasions when you see a man accompanying his wife beside the road, he will be the one rigind the donkey while she walks. Similarly, in the cities it is most unusual to see Turkish men and women walking tohether; and should a man and his

wife run into another couple, it will always be the men who kiss and embrace and engage in conversation, while the women stay quietly in the background.