At the pregnancy of a new daughter in-law, an excitement among family members grows. Upon hearing the good news, a golden bracelet comes immediately as a present from the mother-in-law. In rural areas a pregnant woman declares it with some symbols mostly on her clothing; her scarf, motifs on it and suchlike. In tradition, The woman near parent in-laws and husband has to be shy and not to talk a lot. Therefore, she was showing her pregnancy or births with symbols.

For the births,

In rural places midwives are present, whereas in big cities hospitals are common. After the birth, the new mother receives presents of gold and the child gets all manner of gifts. The mother is not supposed to go out from her house for 40 days. If she works, she has a holiday of 40 days automatically. Relatives, friends and neighbors are all helpful. In the first three days only close relatives come to visit, but in the following days the others also come to visit with lots of presents. Breast-feeding continues normally until the age of two or even later and then weaning is sudden.

Customs in Anatolia

In Anatolia there is a custom of planting trees in the names of newly born children (births) Chestnut, mulberry and apple trees are planted for girls, poplar or pine trees for boys. Planting trees for boys is a kind of investment for him to be used in his marriage when he grows up.

Also another tradition in births is burying funiculus at the specific places such as garden of schools, mosques, homes. We believe that if we bury in school garden, he will be fond of books and has successful education life. Others have similar purposes too.

Also Mostly in local places, couples prefer to give the name of parent names to their children. So There are millions of Mehmet Ahmet, Ayse in Turkey.

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Civil Marriage

In recent years, Marriage can be performed by Muslim clerics or civil officials. But, Turkish laws recognize only civil marriage in Turkey.  The legal age to marry is 18 years old. Also 17 years old can get married with permission of parents both for boys and girls. If the girl or boy is under 16 years old, They can get married with permission of parents and a court decision.

The average age for girls to marry is around 17-18. Early marriages are more frequent in rural areas. For young men in big cities the problems of receiving an education, military service and acquiring a job are among the reasons that delay marriage.

According to region, culture, and education, forms of marriage change. In local regions especially in less educated areas, the tradition is much stricker than cities. And arranged marriages are much more popular.

But There is a quite modern life in west of Turkey. So If the woman is educated well and has a job to make life, the story totally changes for everyone

Divorce

Man and woman are equal according to laws in Turkey. Turkish laws accept only civil marriage and civil divorcing. So Woman has rights as much as man. But because of having quite strict tradition in culture especially on the eastern part of Turkey, Divorcing is not easy for a woman. Especially if a woman doesn’t have any job to continue life, she doesn’t prefer to divorce.

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Turkish Woman in History and Today

Turks were tribes and the culture was so sensitive for mothers and wife in the family before believing to Islam. They were very respective to females. But later they had to meet with Arab culture with Islam. It was easy and very comfortable to adopt some cultures against woman for a man. And they called this it is Islamic culture. It was totally misunderstanding. During Ottoman period, Woman doesn’t have any citizen rights to go to school, to defend herself. After collapsing of Ottoman Empire,  Atatürk who is the founder of Turkish Republic, gave the citizen rights to Turkish Woman. Turkish Woman is the first who got the citizen rights in the world to vote, to talk to defend herself.  However, tradition is quite strict in villages. So, Many women do not know how much rights they have. Because in tradition, our elders teach us how to respect husband. So this law unfortunately doesn’t work well in Turkey. When Atatürk had reformed all these laws, with democracy, religion traders were not so happy about it.

– 9 million of the 21 million working population of Turkey are women.

In the rural areas, the rate of working female is very high. especially it is in agriculture, However, woman  works in this sector as an extension of their housework and not to make a living. In urban areas, women hold important posts in both public and private sectors, the arts and sciences. Today, Turkish women are bank managers, doctors, lawyers, judges, journalists, pilots, diplomats, police officers, army officers or prime ministers.

Nearly two thirds of health personnel including doctors and pharmacists, one quarter of all lawyers and one third of banking personnel are women.

As for the politics, in the elections of 1937, the number of woman MP’s was 18, which meant 4.5%. Today, unfortunately, this rate is much less than before. However, Turkey has also seen Tansu Ciller as the first woman Prime Minister.

A new law proposition

A package called “Democratization of the family” is a new law preposition awaiting parliamentary discussion and enactment and it will include changes in the position of women, some of which are as follows:

• The cancellation of former obligatory permission from their husbands for women to work.
• Equality in the case of adultery.
• In the case of divorce, equality in the sharing of belongings which were acquired after marriage.

Feminism

An important stage of feminism in Turkey started in the 1980s. It is different from the previous stages. Because it was initiated by women who spoke for themselves. It was rather than by men who had manipulated the female image for their own political agenda. At this stage of feminism women spoke for themselves, beginning by arguing the reality of their bodies and their physical needs as opposed to the idealization and the symbolization of the female body as used for the national image.

Feminism strongly challenges the image of some Turkish women as covered, almost sexless beings and also as sacrificial mothers who would do and endure anything for their children and family.

To very briefly summarize the position of women in Turkey today; we can say that unless you are a woman living in a metropolitan city and financially independent, life is still likely to be bound by the customs of traditional family life.

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