Tuesday, November 3, 2009

"Households and Families: Structure and Flux" by Alan Duben and Cem Behar

Duben and Behar used information from the 1885 and 1907 censuses of Istanbul and other areas of Turkey to discuss marriage and family patterns in pre-WWI Turkey. Their main conclusion was that Turkey followed the southeast marriage pattern in a some ways, yet resembled northwestern Europe in other ways. Men and women married relatively early in Istanbul, with the men about ten years older than the women. However, when married the new couples generally left their parent's house and started their own household free from their parent's influence. Extended families still had close ties with young couples but the men were free to make their own decisions for their families. In consequence of young couples moving out, households tended to be quite small which defies Hartman's arguments the SE Europe had more numerous family groups. Duben and Behar do agree with Hartman that the age at marriage is the key to many other aspects of domestic life. They also point out that patterns in Istanbul and rural Anatolia (Turkey) were quite different, with rural Anatolia conforming more to Hartman's idea os SE Europe. The Hainal line is mentioned in reference to the fact that Turkey supports Hainal's ideas in a few ways and does not support it in other. Duben and Behar shed some light on Europe as a whole by discussing Turkey in particular. The example of Turkey shows how no family pattern fits across the board - each culture had its own peculiarities.

1 comment:

Aimee Devine said...

I thought that it was interesting how much nuclear families relied on their extended families. Especially in regards to child rearing. In one instance a mother-in-law would walk from her home, 15 minutes away, to look after the children everyday. Another instance was a sister-in-law helping out a widowed brother by raising his children, but once again she would walk to his house everyday to do so. This shows the strong ties with extended family and yet the focus on the nuclear family. We discussed the emphasis placed on the nuclear family in Hartman's discussion of late marriage.