Minna Rozen: Five Hundred Years of „Daughter Trouble”: Jewish Families and Their Daughters in the Ottoman Era

·         „daughter trouble” usual formula in letters in the 16th century

·         in the Ottoman world a man’s honour was measured by the behaviour of the women of his family

·         child marriage considered to be protective for the morality, because in this way at reaching sexual maturity, people had already sexual partner

·         multi-generation, extended households

·         sandix=dowry boksz

·         spinterhood considered as danger for the society, for the community’s survival

·         gelin kemeri (engagement belt)-> for Christian, Muslim and for Jewish girls alike: marked that she belonged only to one man from that time

·         14 suicides in Istanbul till the 17th century, all of them young females. Minna Rozen found it out from research of tombstones

·         Kalamaria: a district of Salonikabuilt up by the Jewish community

·         Jews of Turkey were involved in the I. World War from the beginning

·         1880s Jewish refugees from Russian Empire-> very poor-> prostitution

·         Balkan wars + I. World War changed everything, the Empire and the patriarchal (Jewish) family collapsed alike

·         Salonika –tobacco industry: daughters of empoverished families became workers in tobacco factories: many of them at the age of 12 or 13!, in order to collect money for marriage-> 1920s trade unions

·         -> women became more independent-> dancing hall, trade union-> getting know men not chosen by the parents…

·         the situation was worse in Istanbul: less available job for women, they had to go to serve well-to-do families

·         in Istanbul only half of the Jewish community was Sephardic, in Salonika almost all of it

·         the „Buda” congregation in Istanbul existed from the mid-16th century

·         multiple married men very rare even amongst Sephardim

·         Jewish women used to turn to Shariya courts with their complainst about husbands! and the Shariya court could force husbands to behave better (but could not arrange divorce of Jewish marriages)

·         Jewish women are not in inheritance line, but in case of becoming widows they get back the dowry

·         intermarriage to muslims could happen only either in the highest or in the lowest social layers and from the 19th century, because middle class girls did not ever meet non:Jews and did not speak a single word in Turkish

Jewish Studies public lecture at CEU, 2012.09.27.