The Role of Turkish Secular Law in Changing the Lives of Rural Muslim Women, 1950–1970

Abstract

The suppression of Islamic family law and the introduction of secular family law to govern family life in Turkey created a legal and regulatory environment that supported more egalitarian relationships within the rural household. Despite the lack of an organized political movement, by 1950 rural Muslim women had begun to use the courts in divorce and other conflicts, suggesting that Ataturk's reforms had diffused to the Anatolian provinces by this time. Female-initiated cases, in conjunction with other behavior such as reducing family size and pushing husbands to leave the extended patriarchal households of their fathers, indicate that rural Islamic women were striving toward more autonomy in their lives. This picture offers a sharp contrast to the image of the passive, submissive rural Islamic woman described in much of the social science literature on Turkey. It suggests instead that rural women were active participants in changing their life situations.