Istanbul Households

Istanbul Households is a social history of marriage, the family and population in Istanbul during the turbulent period of transition from the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Istanbul was the first Muslim city to experience a systematic decline in fertility and major changes in family life, and, as such, set the tone for many social and cultural changes in Turkey and the Muslim world. Istanbul was the major focal point for the forces of westernization of Turkish society, processes which not only transformed political and economic institutions in that country, but also had a profound and lasting impact on domestic life. This is the first systematic historical study of the family and population in Turkey or the Middle East, combining the methods and approaches of social anthropology, historical demography and social history. 

 

List of plates; List of figures; Note on calendars, weights and currency; Note on Turkish pronunciation and spelling; Acknowledgements; 1. Issues, scope and sources; 2. City, Mahalle, incomes and subsistence: social and economic framework; 3. Households and families: structure and flux; 4. Love and marriage: meanings and transactions; 5. Marriage age and polygyny: myths and realities; 6. Fertility and birth control: Istanbul's particularities; 7. Westernization and new family directions: cultural reconstruction; 8. Conclusion: civilizational shift; Glossary of Ottoman-Turkish terms; Sources and bibliography; Index.