Beating Is Heaven-Sent: Corporal Punishment Of Children In The Late Ottoman And Early Republican Era

Abstract

The term and the practice that underpins it as well as the legal regulations on both international and national levels have undergone significant transformation throughout the last centuries yet corporal punishment as a common tool of discipline in child-raising and educating processes that cuts across countries, cultures and times proved to be a highly durable commodity of human life repertoire. This chapter, focusing on the Muslim-Turkish society of the late Ottoman and early Republican eras, shall try to capture and narrate the story of corporal punishment as it was perceived and experienced by children, be at the hands of their parents or teachers, through an in-depth analysis of memoirs, biographies, autobiographies, private letters, newspaper columns, magazine articles as well as child-rearing manuals and news reports.