A Separate People: Jewish Women in Palestine, Syria and Egypt in the Sixteenth Century

This major new contribution to the history of women examines the special status accorded to women in the Jewish communities of the Eastern Mediterranean provinces of the Ottoman Empire in the early modern period. Topics examined include their daily life and the social norms governing them, polygamy, divorce, child marriage, and the position of female slaves. Based on a detailed analysis of Hebrew and Arabic manuscript sources, legal and other, this first study of the subject in English opens up an almost unknown world of women to the modern researcher.