The new generation of Ottomans who were well educated, spoke foreign languages, and had lived in Europe also developed new entertainment habits, such as partying, dancing, attending concerts, and going to movies like Europeans. They also had a strong fashion sense. Having developed a different lifestyle, the new generation of Ottomans perceived family life and marriage differently than previous generations. In this section, I will explore the newly developed entertainment habits of the new generation of Ottomans.
As a result of the increasing trade with Europeans in port cities like İzmir and Istanbul, and the visiting and even settling of traders, cities’ social and cultural milieus changed. In various quarters a European-style urban culture developed,379 and women became freer and more visible. This situation alarmed reformers and
378 Ibid., 666.
379 Elizabeth Brown Frierson, “Unimagined Communities: State, Press and Gender in the Hamidian Era,” (PhD diss., Princeton University, 1996), 229-230.
some intellectuals, since, for some people, the morality of society depended on women’s behaviors.380
Along with trade, cultural products also influenced women. According to Fanny Davis, an Ottoman Muslim girl faced a dilemma.381 She was nourished on the romantic French novel, which mostly shaped her thoughts. But she was also surrounded by the norms and traditions of her society and cultural milieu. However, women who looked for romance or romantic love were conceived of as a threat to Ottoman society by some conservative people. In many novels, the degrading impact of free love, sex, and the destruction of morality and family were explored, and mostly women were held responsible for the moral degradation and the corruption of the society.382
Women visible on the streets and indulging in entertainment were criticized both by certain writers and state authorities. For instance, in Türk Kadını, Necmettin Sadık criticized elite Istanbulite women for gambling. In villas or seaside mansions, some elite women played cards until dawn. According to Sadık, rather than wasting their time by gambling, these women should be involved in cultural activities and contributing to society.383
Many elite women living in port cities also developed an interest in European fashions during the 19th century. Many stores selling high fashion items were opened in Istanbul and Izmir. In time, fashion trends from afar permeated Ottoman society, and even some conservative middle-class women had adopted European fashions.384 In the popular promenades of Istanbul, most of which were located around the Pera
380 Ibid., 171.
381 Fanny Davis, The Ottoman Lady a Social History from 1718 to 1918, 79.
382 Alen Duben and Cem Behar, Istanbul Households, 103.
383 Necmettin Sadık, “Bir Sual Münasebetiyle,” Türk Kadını, 8, 19 August 1918.
384 Nancy Micklewright, “Women’s Dress in Nineteenth Century Istanbul: Mirror of a Changing Soci-ety,” (PhD diss., University of Pennslyvania, 1986), 1-3.
district, fashionable Ottoman women competed with each other. Certain places like Direklerarası, Divanyolu, Laleli, and Aksaray, along with Pera, had become places where the status of each woman was being contested in terms of fashion.385
Issues of fashion and beauty ranked among the hotly debated topics in some journals of the late Ottoman Empire. The writers in Türk Kadını regarded fashion a serious matter to consider and elaborate on. One of the writers, Perihan, said that World War I did not have an impact on fashion. She complained that what was accepted as high fashions in the Ottoman Empire were items that had grown out of vogue in Europe. Because readers of the Türk Kadını could not follow the fashion journals of Paris or Vienna, they had no up-to-date information about high fashion.
Therefore the editors of Türk Kadını had decided to write a regular column to inform their readers.386
The writers in Türk Kadını were very conscious of beauty and fashion. Even a male writer, Ahmet Edip, said that there must be a ratio between a woman’s height and weight. A woman should do sports and should not eat chocolate or drink coffee, for they would fatten her. Therefore, if a woman wanted to look beautiful, she should do sports regularly and eat less.387 In a similar vein, another male writer of the journal, Mehmed Arif, talked about importance of a woman’s having a specific room for her clothes and dresser. This room should be kept clean all the time, so that the smell of her makeup would not hang in air.388
385 Ebubekir Sofluoğlu “Osmanlılar’da İsraf ve Kadın,” Tarih ve Toplum, 207 (2001), 20.
386 “..Harp çok şeyi az çok sarstığı halde modaya ilişmedi. Hatta kumaş fiyatları arttıkça moda salgın gibi herkesi sardı. Osmanlı’da moda kabul edilen renkler ve şekiller ekseriya Avrupa’da modası çoktan geçmiş şeyler. Okuyucular Paris ve Viyana’da ki matbuâtı takip edemediğinden terzilerin yeni dediği şeyi kabul etmek zorunda kalıyor..” Perihan, “Moda” Türk Kadını, 2, 6 June 1918.
387 Ahmet Edip, “Çirkinlik,” Türk Kadını, 2, 6 June 1918.
388 Mehmed Arif, “Tuvalet Masası ve Şeraiti,” Türk Kadını, 8, 29 August 1918.
Zeliha Osman of Kadınlar Dünyası also mentioned the importance of women dressing up handsomely and smartly applying makeup. Because many Turkish men preferred to marry foreign women, it was almost a responsibility for Turkish women to look beautiful. Turkish men, she said, lately stayed away from veiled women and called them ahmaq, stupid, and made jokes about veiled women. By looking like Western women, Turkish women could regain Turkish men. Besides, if Turkish men did not want to destruct the purity of Turkishness, they should change their minds, the writer argued.389
In the article “About Fashion” in Türk Kadını, however, the extravagance of French women was criticized. The writer said that French women indulged in fashion to such an extent that even the famous priest François Orson had to preach to them about the disadvantages of that indulgence.390 Also, in another article, women were advised to dress plainly but elegantly, especially during war. Since the war had affected the budgets of households negatively, women should be observant of their budgets.391
The conservative writers of Sebil’ür-Reşad criticized women for indulging in fashion-related activities, for those writers deemed fashion as extravagance. In an article dated 1919, it was argued that being mothers, women had many responsibilities towards their children, families, and country. A Muslim woman should protect her honour. However, indulgence in fashion and showing off on the streets had degraded her.392 In another article in the journal, Mustafa Nazmi accused
389 Zeliha Osman, “Türk Kadınları,” Kadınlar Dünyası, 53, 26 May 1918.
390 “Moda Hakkında,” Türk Kadını, 3, 20 June 1918.
391 “Kadınlık Şuûnu Sade Giyinen Hanımlar Cemiyeti,” Türk Kadını, 3, 20 June 1918.
392 “Milletin fertleri dini ve milli terbiyeyi ilk defa kadın şefkatinden aldığı gibi fedakârlık, diğerkâm-lık, vatanperverlik gibi güzel huyları yine annelerine borçludur. Kadın yalnız evladını değil, kocasını, kardeşini hatta babasını hayatın sarsıntılarına karşı teselli eden, donatandır. Sefahate düşmüş pek çok erkeği kurtarıp aile babası yapan yine kadındır. Cemiyetin yarısı kadınlardır. Ona bu pâyeyi ilk defa İslam vermiş, ona vazifeler yüklemiştir. Ancak son senelerde kadınlığın yükseltilmesi nâmına
Istanbulite women of devastating their families because of their fashion extravaganza, neglecting housework, walking seminude on the streets, and disrespecting religion. The writer advised those Istanbulite women to take peasant women—who woke up early, fed their families, went to fields with their husbands, rode donkeys, took care of animals, prepared food supplies for winter, and even carried weaponry to soldiers fighting at the front—as an example.393
A late Ottoman critic and intellectual Ahmet Rıza, warned Muslim Ottoman women against the ills of libertinism, smoking and drinking. For Rıza indulging in such activities would not make a woman free, but debauched. Besides, he argued that such women would hinder the development of women’s rights movements.394 Rıza thought that Ottoman women misjudged the liberties of American or European women. Only a small portion of these women would go to theatres, lounge around, shop, or party. These were small, wealthy elite. However, the rest of Western women had to work in factories, face extremely tough working conditions, and eventually got sick and died. These women did not even have the luxury of a concubine, who lived in the average Ottoman household.395
İbrahim Hilmi, another late Ottoman intellectual, seconded Rıza’s thoughts by arguing that a modern woman worked, not looked like her Western counterpart.
For Hilmi, wearing obscene clothes did not make a woman modern, nor did lounging in cafés, mingling with men, or becoming a man’s mistress. These were the ills of European civilization, from which Ottomans should refrain. Hilmi talked about a twenty-year-old American woman traveler, whom he met during his visit to Aleppo.
atılan yanlış adımlar nedeniyle kadınlar düşmüş. … Sebebi ise memleketteki koyu cehâletle taklitçilik-tedir. Kadınlar son senelerde taşkın bir biçimde moda iptilâsına uğramışlardır. … Kadınları düşüren de moda iptilâsı ve süslenme gayretidir…” “Kadınların Vaziyet ve Vazifeleri,” Sebil’ür-Reşad 17, 429, 17 July 1919.
393 Mustafa Nazmi, “Taşrada İslam Kadını,” Sebil’ür-Reşad 11, 415, 1 May 1919.
394 Ahmet Rıza, “Vazife ve Mesuliyet–Kadın,” in Sosyo-Kültürel Değişme Sürecinde Türk Ailesi Vol 3, ed. Hakkı Dursun Yıldız, (Ankara: Emek Gazete ve Matbaacılık Ltd., 1992), 1037.
395 Ahmet Rıza, “Vazife ve Mesuliyet–Kadın,” 1037.
Hilmi and the young American lady visited Baalbek together and had a lengthy chat, at the end of which Hilmi became a fan of hers, because she was very well educated, had good manners, and had the courage to mingle with a man. She was at the same time able to protect her chastity. She was the ideal type to which every Ottoman woman should aspire.396
Like Rıza and Hilmi, Şükûfe Nihal, who was a writer at Türk Kadını, criticized women for wearing too much makeup and indulging in fashion extravaganzas. However, Nihal’s approach was different from that of conservative or Westernist writers. For Nihal, wearing too much makeup and indulging in fashion extravagances were signs of stupidity and ignorance. She argued that only a well-educated and wise woman could draw admiration also with her makeup and smart dress. Therefore, mothers should warn their daughters about the makeup and fashion issues; for Turkish women should preserve their nobility.397
Palmira Brummett argued that even in cartoons of the late Ottoman Empire women dressing in Western fashion were associated with immorality and unrestrained sexuality.398 There was a conservative backlash to such women. In August 1910, the Meşihat wrote an official letter to the Ministry of the Interior saying that measures must be taken against those women, who did not comply with the conventions of the beautiful religion of Islam. The Ministry of the Interior then
396 İbrahim Hilmi, “Aile Hayatımızda Avrupalılaşmanın Tesiri,” in Sosyo-Kültürel Değişme Sürecinde Türk Ailesi Vol 3, ed. Hakkı Dursun Yıldız. (Ankara: Emek Gazete ve Matbaacılık Ltd., 1992), 1077-1079.
397 Şükufe Nihal, “Mekteplerde Kıyafet,” Türk Kadını, 7, 15 August 1918.
398 Palmira Brummett, “Dressing for Revolution: Mother, Nation, Citizen, and Subversive in the Ot-toman Satirical Press,” in Deconstructing the Images of “The Turkish Woman”, ed. Zehra Arat, (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998), 54.
ordered the head police of Istanbul to take the necessary precautions and warned the families about such cases.399
As explored through the primary sources, many Ottoman women living in big cities were exposed to fashion and extravagant entertainment during the late 19th century. They wanted to look beautiful, dress smartly and fashionably, which was also what their male counterparts demanded. For good or bad, Ottomans living in big cities changed in terms of lifestyle and perspectives, and so did their approach to veiling and marriage issues, which I will explore in the next section.