sempozyum_bildiri_kitabi

Rome to help her mother through the intervention of the highly illustrious and powerful Minister of
Foreign Affairs, Visconti‐Venosta 21 In an unexpected development, the day before the third meeting
to pay Dragoman Cangià, an “extremely assertive” note arrived from the minister at the Italian
Embassy of Constantinople, urging a resolution to Chryssoni’s case. Infuriated at the level of scrutiny
and the level of Chryssoni’s tenacity, and possibly feeling double‐crossed, Dragoman Cangià sent
word to Chryssoni via Ali Bey that, “even if King Umberto 22 in person comes here to she will not be
able to get her money back.” 23
Legal Pluralism: Women and Gender Cases in the Ottoman Empire
Women and gender cases in turn‐of‐the‐century Ottoman society often fell among competing
legal codes and sometimes crossed jurisdictional boundaries. Building upon normalized sources and
methodology, this study incorporates gender as a unit of analysis, with the understanding of gender
as, “the social rules that attempt to organize the relationship of men and women in societies, which
produces the knowledge we have of sex and sexual difference.” 24 For at least thirty years, scholars of
the Middle East and North Africa have been warned about using exclusively male, westerndominated
sources from government, consular, scholarly, and legal authorities as being prescriptive
in nature, and simply reflective of discourses of domination and tension. 25 Historical sources are both
social products and cultural reproduction. Sources must be analyzed to decipher their real meaning
with regard to gender and other forms of power relations. Women’s voices in the historical records
and as the recorders of history have been too silent, which has failed history writing that aims to
reflect the reality of the past for all of humanity, and not just a select stratum. Much has been done,
but much more must be done to restore women’s voices across social strata to historical narratives.
Including women in history writing must be normalized as a practice and not viewed as exceptional.
The methodological resolution to the problem is to identify and engage women’s positions,
behaviors, and concerns in all potential written, oral, and multi‐media sources across fields,
disciplines and theoretical lenses. Women should be treated equally with regards to source work,
and given the same level of agency to influence, and to be influenced by, History‐as surely they have
done.
Keywords: Ottoman, Legal pluralism, Court records, Gender, Law
Dr. Elizabeth H. Shlala
London School of Economics and Political Science
International History Department
e.shlala@lse.ac.uk
ehs6@hoyamail.georgetown.edu
Notes
1
Dimitri Gondicas and Charles Issawi, ed., Ottoman Greeks in the Age of Nationalism: Politics,
Economy, and Society in the Nineteenth Century (Princeton, NJ: Darwin Press, 1999).
2
Dragomans were Ottoman state functionaries who served as interpreters, translators, and
guides.
3 All case‐related documents are from ITTCR008, Folder of documents related to the Case of Mrs
Teresa Chryssoni v. Princess Seniha from the Ottoman Bank Archives (Istanbul, Turkey). Referred
to as ITTCR008 throughout. ITTCR008, 1‐3b and 12‐17b.
4
Lauren Benton and Richard Ross, eds., Legal Pluralism and Empires, 1500‐1850 (New York: New
York University Press, 2013); Mary Lewis, Divided Rule: Sovereignty and Empire in French Tunisia,
1881‐1938 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013); Samera Esmeir, Juridical Humanity: A
Colonial History (California: Stanford University Press, 2012); Julia Ann Clancy‐Smith,