Culture of Turkey Essay: Women in Medieval Times

📌Category: Cultural Differences, Culture
📌Words: 1374
📌Pages: 5
📌Published: 15 April 2021

Most people often think just of Europe when they hear of Medieval times, but the dark ages were covered in almost all the points worldwide during the 4th century. Most houses from around the world were ruled by the man of the house. Simply like everywhere else,  Medieval Turkish families were ruled by men. Some people thought that women were second-class citizens and were not as important as men. If so, what would life be like in a medieval Turkey family? The Medieval Turkish family could not have possibly flourished without women.

Life for Ottoman women outside the house may have appeared limited. Women usually relegated to doing house chores such as praying or taking care of the children.  One of the number one reasons for women’s not being allowed to do anything or think creatively was that women not being allowed to work. Women were usually doing house chores, weaving, and other things. Again, since women were not allowed to work during the Ottoman Empire, it’s clear that they were doing other things to help the Turkish family flourish. They were “taking care of her children, praying, sewing and embroidery, weaving or playing music.” Their helping is a great deal to the family and without them, it would be even harder without them. Now, if there were no women inside a household or apart from a family, imagine the life without them.

I suspect children going hungry, the family going to sleep in the night cold, and dirty houses that haven’t been cleaned in weeks. This event is one of the impacts the Medieval Turkish family could feel or have when there wasn’t a woman inside a household. This event clearly shows that they are important. “Life for women outside the home was limited, but by no means non-existent,” they sometimes went to marriages, engagements, and a few other events. So, typically they were inside the house. Now don’t think women are useless and not creative. Since women were inside the house usually, they didn’t have many opportunities to explore and invent things then men did, or to help outside of the house. They did use their time wisely putting an effort on small things such as embroidery, tidying up, and other things.

Now look back at Medieval Turkey,  it’s possible that some men might have stolen women’s ideas? It wasn’t against the law, and the women couldn’t do anything at all. If they did, they would be severely punished and were thought to be lying. They were the people who did all the work but maybe a man had taken all the credit. If women were given more credit they would’ve been more respected, recognized, and given thanks for their hard work to the Turkish community and family. Women could have made the world a much more modern place because they are just as smart as men. They  basically helped the family flourish from behind the scene.

How Women Were Perceived

By the early nineteen hundreds, nearly all women were settled in the rural area and few nomadic women were left to make the animals. They became very busy by that, so they could not get married or engaged. Anyway, if they did, they would be killed. All because of the rising demand for livestock, therefore, if it wasn’t for a few women in Medieval Turkey, so many families could’ve died and lived on the streets. 

Since women help the Turkish family flourish by feeding them, women help their family survive. Women are the ones who cook and clean and make sure the men are able to go out and work. Without women’s help and effort, men wouldn’t be able to do their daily work. Men were needed to do labor work because women back in Medieval Turkey were seen as weak. Additionally, Men were needed to do labor work for their city, but some women were needed to make livestock. They were needed to feed their city. Without women, families would go starving, there would be fewer houses built because of  the men’s trying to produce livestock. Fewer children would be born, and more people would die. Settled rural women were not involved in agriculture at all, just taking care of and giving birth to children. That is why the nomadic women were so important.

Since most women were married at a young age, their only choice was to take care of their family which was the only thing they learned from their mother’s how to do. Because of this, women learned how to keep their family healthy and the children safe. Women are a big part of the families flourishing and they should have been appreciated more.

I don’t know how these women could live in this terrible place, they should be honored and respected like today. Also, without giving birth to and taking care of children, there wouldn’t be future generations. Women are the people who do that. Without women, there wouldn’t be men. Women are the ones who become pregnant and give birth. Most of these women were girls that grew up without a mother. 

Young men and women were not able to see or get to know one another, nor to choose the person they were to marry. “The choice of a bride was the prerogative of the man's mother, and if the girl's family agreed, the matter would be settled by the parents among themselves. The marriage contract would be concluded by means of a bride and groom expressing their consent separately in the presence of witnesses, without seeing one another.” But rarely does this not doesn’t happen, only if the girl does not know how to be a mother and how to take care of her children All kinds of things such as cleaning up the house, how to cook, and how to weave a simple blanket. They were supposed to learn this from their mother, but maybe their mother had died already.

Submissiveness

Females were taught to be submissive towards men. That is why production male offspring is important, so his wife and daughter are submissive to him and as well for teaching his sons about their superiority over women. Though this is not what it is at all today, can you believe it? To make it even worse, females were seen as lower to men even though they were ones giving birth to men. Women were treated horribly and weren’t given any credit. But they were the people who supported the whole family and helped them survive. Without them, the Medieval Turkish family could not have possibly flourished without a woman. What’s even more sexist is that women were supposed to give birth mainly to males, but if a woman gave birth to a girl, the young girl would be treated unfairly and harshly. She would have disadvantages just because of her gender. Losing infertility or for the child to die was very normal.

That is why it was so important to give birth to male offsprings. If it wasn’t for women, no children would’ve been born and men would not have power over women in general. They would have to fight for power instead of already been given to by the women’s being submissive. Another reason why a family could not have survive without a women is that the men would go to war, they would want to have power and control over most men and women. Women were peaceful and understood why men were in charge of them and head of the house.

It was to and so easy to get sick back in Medieval Turkey. If a child lived over the age of 10 their parents would know that they would live for a long time. But it was very common for them to die because most people weren’t clean back then, only because of their not knowing about bacteria and germs. Usually, most people did not take showers because of their thinking that everything was clean and were not needed to be cleaned. Women, especially women, were not allowed to take showers, they were never to be seen unclothed or fully naked. Also, it would be too hard for anyone to take a shower without running water. This clearly shows that people would get awfully sick, very easily, especially newborns. 

Women should have been more recognized and respected than being pushed aside and seen as second class citizens. But they weren’t in Medieval Turkey, that is why their main priorities were to get married and have children, especially male children. They have also been left aside, alone, in the house for hours a day taking care of multiple children. Men could not have canceled work and come back home to take care of the children. Now to all sum it up, any family would not have possibly flourished without women in Medieval Turkey. 

 

 

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