Gender and justice: The status of women in Ottoman courts
Metin Cosgel (),
Hamdi Genç,
Emre Özer and
Sadullah Yıldırım
Economic History Review, 2024, vol. 77, issue 4, 1251-1281
Abstract:
This paper studies legal disparities between men and women in a patriarchal framework. Throughout history, women have confronted discrimination in matters of inheritance, property ownership, and various other legal rights. We examine the consequences of legal discrimination for women's differential engagement and success within legal conflicts, using data from Ottoman courts in the early nineteenth century. The results show that women were parties to approximately 30 per cent of cases, with a modest gender gap of around eight to ten percentage points in terms of plaintiff win rates. The gap varied across courts and types of cases, consistent with gender disparities in legal knowledge and trial stakes in patriarchal societies. Notably, when litigating against male defendants, the disparity was more pronounced in provincial courts (Konya and Kütahya), as opposed to courts in the capital city (Galata and Üsküdar). Similarly, while the gender gap was greater in property and probate cases than those involving personal crimes and commercial exchange, the gap was reversed in family matters. The analysis suggests that a significant portion of the gender gap in litigation success can be attributed to disparities in evidence presentation (witness testimonies, written documents and legal opinions).
Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:
Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/ehr.13310
Related works:
Working Paper: Gender and Justice: The Status of Women in Ottoman Courts (2022) 
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:ehsrev:v:77:y:2024:i:4:p:1251-1281
Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0013-0117
Access Statistics for this article
Economic History Review is currently edited by Stephen Broadberry
More articles in Economic History Review from Economic History Society Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().