Morality Tales: Law and Gender in the Ottoman Court of Aintab

In this skillful analysis, Leslie Peirce delves into the life ofa sixteenth-century Middle Eastern community, bringing to light theways that women and men used their local law court to solvepersonal, family, and community problems.Examining one year's proceedings of the court of Aintab, anAnatolian city that had recently been conquered by the Ottomansultanate, Peirce argues that local residents responded to newopportunities and new constraints by negotiating flexible legalpractices. Their actions and the different compromises they reachedin court influenced how society viewed gender and also created adialogue with the ruling regime over mutual rights andobligations.Locating its discussion of gender and legal issues in thecontext of the changing administrative practices and shifting powerrelations of the period, Morality Tales argues that it wasonly in local interpretation that legal rules acquired vitality andmeaning.