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Osmanlı Devleti’nde Kadınların Mülkiyet Hakları ve Karşılaştıkları Hukuki Sorunlar
20. Yüzyılda karşılaştığı sorunlar arasında hiçbir fark yoktur. Değişen
tek şey şikâyet dilekçelerinde kullanılan dildir. 20. Yüzyılın Osmanlı
kadınları artık bir lütuf olarak değil, hukuka uygun olarak medeni ve
anayasal haklarını talep etmiştir. Unutulmamalıdır ki Osmanlı kadın-
larınınmülkiyet haklarını korumak konusunda karşılaştıkları zorluklar
ve verdikleri hukuki mücadele günümüzde bu konuda karşılaşılan so-
runların anlaşılabilmesinde de önemli bir referans noktası olacaktır.
Anahtar Kelimeler:
Tereke, Eda Ehliyeti, Taşınmaz Mal, Şikâyet
Dilekçesi, Şer’iyye Mahkemesi
Absract:
The accepted identity in the Ottoman Empire was be-
ing Moslem, free and man. For this reason non-moslems, slaves and
women had different legal status. The inequalities between men
and women can be seen especially in the fields of marriage, divorce,
portion of inheritance, testimony and political rights. Except from
these, there was no diversity between men and women in terms
of property rights in the Ottoman legal system. In this context, the
women who had capacity to act could do all kinds of legal transacti-
ons and own movable and immovable property by purchasing, do-
nation, succession and will. Nevertheless the Ottoman women had
to strive for protecting their property rights. There are numerous
examples that prove the struggle in the shari’a court records and
the archive documents. In that period, the Ottoman women firstly
went to the shari’a courts. If they believed that the court’s decision
was not fair, they could write petitions to the sultan by declaring
their grievances and demand the justice of Sultan. The Ottoman of-
ficial documents proved that the property rights of Ottoman wo-
men were vulnerable and opened to attack. The Ottoman women
generally complained about the attacks of their male relatives such
as husbands, brothers, nephews. Those male relatives frequently
seized women’s real estates or portion of inheritance. Also local
powers sometimes abused their authorities and retained the immo-
vable properties of women. Compared to men, women submitted
less petitions to İstanbul. Writing a petition was the last resort for
the Ottoman women when all other avenues for obtaining concessi-
ons or compromises had failed. The cases sued in the shari’a courts
and the petitions written by women were mostly about the violati-
on of the property and inheritance rights. It is interesting to see that
complaints of women contained mostly their property and inheri-
tance rights rather than the grievances of marriage and divorce. The
women’s complaints were not related to their social status, even
the women who were the members of Ottoman dynasty face injus-
tices related to the property rights. Throughout the centuries, the
representatives of the judicial and the executive organ were tend to
decide in favour of the men on property disputes. Even after centu-
ries, the Ottoman women had faced same difficulties for exercising
their property rights. As the Ottoman records show us, there is no
difference between the problems which the Ottoman women had
to faced in 17th century and the 20th century. The only alteration ap-
peared on the nature of women’s petitions. In 20th century, women
demanded their constitutional and civil rights instead of sultanic jus-
tice in their petitions. The traditional pleading and passive tone of