Marriage and divorce in the Muslim Near East, 1250--1517

This is a study of women and family in the cities of the Near East in the Mamluk period (1250--1517). The argument advanced is that gender relationships within families went through a radical transformation in the period under discussion, a transformation that reflected wider social changes brought about by the onset of the Black Death. The first part of the dissertation is devoted to the economic foundations of marriage. First I consider the division of patrimony across gender lines, and argue that daughters of upper-class families received their share of the inheritance in the form of trousseaux, but, at least up to the fifteenth century, were denied access to landed revenue. The second chapter discusses the contribution of lower class women to the urban crafts, specifically to the textile industry. For many widows and divorcees, the wages they received for their work were their only means of making a living. Exclusively female religious houses were founded in order to accommodate this sizeable community of single women. The third chapter considers the financial obligations of husbands, and demonstrates that, as a result of increasing monetization, women started to demand and receive marital support in cash rather than in kind.; The second part of the dissertation examines the balance of power between husbands and wives. The fourth chapter deals with polygamy and concubinage, and argues for a substantial decline in both phenomena in the fifteenth century. The fifth chapter highlights the power of oaths on pain of divorce, which were considered the most powerful means of conveying social commitments. The focus of this chapter is the attempt of the religious reformer Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328) to limit the use of divorce oaths, and the response of the state authorities to his challenge. The last chapter deals with the sources of patriarchal authority. While unilateral repudiation was the most potent expression of marital authority in the beginning of this period, in the fifteenth century a more centralized state and a more interventionist judicial system were more directly involved in the regulation of the domestic unit.