Morality Tales: Law and Gender in the Ottoman Court of Aintab

by Leslie P. Peirce

In this skillful analysis, Leslie Peirce delves into the life of a sixteenth-century Middle Eastern community, bringing to light the ways that women and men used their local law court to solve personal, family, and community problems. Examining one year's proceedings of the court of Aintab, an Anatolian city that had recently been conquered by the Ottoman sultanate, Peirce argues that local residents responded to new opportunities and new constraints by negotiating flexible legal practices. Their actions and the different compromises they reached in court influenced how society viewed gender and also created a dialogue with the ruling regime over mutual rights and obligations. Locating its discussion of gender and legal issues in the context of the changing administrative practices and shifting power relations of the period, Morality Tales argues that it was only in local interpretation that legal rules acquired vitality and meaning.

Genres: History, Law, Gender

492 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Leslie P. Peirce is an American professor in history. Her research interests include early modern history of the Ottoman Empire, gender, law, and society. She received her B.A. in History from Harvard College, her M.A. in Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard University, and her Ph.D. (1988) in Near Eastern Studies from Princeton University. In 1988–1998 she was with the Cornell University. In 1998–2006 she was professor in the Departments of History and Near Eastern Studies the University of California, Berkeley. Since 2006 she is with Department of History and the Department of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies of the New York University, where she is the Silver Professor of History.

Reviews

[Liz Mennitt · Rating 4 out of 5]

great book, but it could have been just as great and also 100 pages shorter