| THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE OF TURKISH PEASANT COMMUNITIES ABSTRACT OF CONTENTS Preface This work is a report on field work in a village near Kayseri, on the Anatolian plateau, carried out between November 1949 and August 1950. In view of the lack of any such systematic account of village life in English, it has been my aim simply to present an analytical description of the village. Chapter I. - Historical and Political Background. Central Anatolia consists of a plateau at about 3,000 feet, rising towards the East, with a limited supply of rain severe winters and hot summers. The westernisation of Turkey began during the nineteenth century with attempts to borrow ideas and institutions from Europe, itself undergoing rapid social change, and impose them by administrative action on a society to which they were ill fitted. Some of the problems and contradictions of this attempt were removed by the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I. By his astonishing success in upsetting the Allied peace plans, and driving out the occupation forces, Mustafa Kemal, later Ataturk, won sufficient prestige and power to enable him to establish a Republic, to close all Islamic institutions for learning and devotion, to abolish the fez, and to introduce a Republican constitution, a complete legal code borrowed from Europe, and a Latin alphabet. Westernising reform has continued in many fields. Industry has been established, largely by State action, and since 1945, Turkey has enjoyed political liberty and a democratic constitution. Chapter II. - The Relation of Town and Village - General Administration Social intercourse and contact between town and village in Turkey has been and still is slight. After the establishment of the Republic, tax farming was abolished, and a Village Law passed, containing a remarkable list of detailed orders, many of which are ignored. To cope with illiteracy, the government has founded, since 1939, a system of village Institutes for training village children as village schoolmasters. The government has helped the peasants by price stabilisation, by cheap leans and by providing seed. Administratively, the country is divided into Provinces, Counties and Districts, each under a centrally appointed officer. |
| Chapter III. - Kayseri and Sakaltutan Kayseri is an important town of about 60,000 people, lying on main routes to the east and south. Sakaltutan, the subject of this study, is a stone-built village of about 640 people, about twenty miles east of Kayseri, on a road just possible, except in winter, for motor traffic. The houses are simple, a few being still caves. The living room is the women’s sphere; some households have special rooms (“odalar”) for the men to gather in. The technological level is not much altered yet from traditional methods and implements. Agriculture is the basic occupation. Chapter IV. - Village and Households The village is a compact and stable social and political unit, with a corporate personality. It is divided into Quarters, but these, thought opposed to each other, have no precise boundaries or communal activities or responsibilities. The households consist of patrilocal families, ideally of three generations, but in practice mostly of two. The village criterion of separation of households is separate cooking. Households vary in size from two to seventeen persons. Chapter V. - Kinship and Neighbourhood: Kabile and Oda The main kinship group is the “Kabile”, a group of agnates descended from a common ancestor, usually of about four generations in depth. Agnates are often neighbours. The main function of the group is defence in quarrels and fights. The senior member of a kabile has a vague responsibility and authority over the members. The group helps its members in time of misfortune, and is conspicuous on festal occasions. It has no formal organisation. Patrilateral kin ties at a personal level are not characterised by rules or formalities. Matrilateral and affinal kinship ties vary with the social and physical distance between the partners, and are not, therefore, susceptible of generalisation. The guest rooms, “odalar”, play an important part in the social life of the men. An analysis of the men attending the twelve oda in use in the village in the winter of the 1949, shows that each oda was used by a core of close agnates of the owner, and that in several of them large groups of matrilateral kin and neighbours also congregated. Chapter VI. - Kinship and Neighbourhood: Women and Inter-village Ties |
| Cross-sex relationships occur only within the household of (with) close kin. Women’s social relations are largely with other women. They do not have the same loyalty to the kabile into which they marry as do the men who belong to it by birth, and their day to day intimacy follows different lines, towards neighbours and towards their own kinswoman. The pattern of a woman’s personal relationships depends largely on her marriage, whether or not she marries a kinsman, and whether or not she marries outside her natal village. Inter-village kinship is mainly matrilateral and affinal. It has a different quality from such ties within the village, since a kinsman in another village provides a foothold among strangers. These inter-village ties are essential to the functioning of other inter-village relations. Neighbourhood ties are of the same sort as kinship, providing close intimacy, and hence kinship and neighbourhood sometimes overlap and reinforce each other, sometimes work against each other. Personal friendships outside kinship and close neighbourhood are rare, in the village, but do occur among fellow soldiers or migrant labourers. There are no formal age groupings, but age is treated with deference, and carries authority. Chapter VII. - Men and Women The work and function of men and women is divided, the men being responsible for providing the main livelihood, for defence, and for contact with the outside world, the women for the home, the children and all tasks connected with the preparation of food. In practice, women do much that is considered men’s work, but men never do women’s work. Socially, men and women are segregated, and this segregation affects the relationship of women with the few men they may associate with, since they have no interests in common. Men have much greater prestige and authority in the village. The whole system of sex relations is seen as consistent by the village and is supported by religious authority. Sex morality is very strict. Chapter VIII. - The Household The central relation in the household is that of husband and wife. A girl goes in marriage to the boy’s father’s house, usually as a complete stranger, and is so regarded at first. Gradually, with the birth of children, she becomes established until she is in turn the mother-in-law. Polygamy is now fairly rare. A mother’s relationship with her son is often the most important to her in her life, but comes later in life. A girl’s relationship with her father and brothers is strongest in childhood, and is then disrupted by her marriage, but |
| remains important as her refuge and defence. Mother and daughter, and sisters are closely associated until the girls marry, a heartbreaking event for the mother. The relations between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law seem to follow prescribed rules and generally the adjustment seems to be successful. The men of the household are its permanent core. A father is proud of his sons and expects to live off their labour. Brothers are the closest of all people in the village. an elder brother has special authority, but economically brothers should be treated alike. Normally, brothers divide their households on their father’s death. Chapter IX. - Marriage. Marriage is arranged by the two fathers. After successful negotiations and agreement on bride price, a special betrothal visit is paid by the boy’s woman to the girl’s village or household, with gifts. The couple are not supposed to meet during betrothal. The wedding last four days to a week, and the sexes conduct their ceremonies separately. A man may marry any girl from his father’s brother’s daughter from next door, to a stranger from up to twenty miles away. Both kin and stranger marriages have advantages. Bride price is usually from 300 to 500 T.L., and the size of the trousseau and scale of the wedding is related to the size of the bride price. A widow may return home, or may stay with her husband’s family. Brothers often inherit widows. A wider remarries as soon as possible. Divorce, although simple for a man, is not common. Chapter X. - Political and Administrative Organisation No one family in Sakaltutan holds political power, though this may be the case in some villages. The muhtar is elected and changes frequently. He is generally a young man, has no internal influence, and is simply, now-a-days, government clerk and spokesman. Equally, the Council of Elders no longer consists of elders and does very little. The village publicly appoints herdsmen, a watchman and an imam, and there was also a schoolmaster who was a local man. The village is visited by a number of officials, all educated townsmen. The officials generally have a paternalistic attitude to the villagers. The 1950 election was properly conducted and the village keenly interested. |
| Chapter XI. - Land and Income Agriculture is basic. The winter is a slack time, the harvest occurring in July. All cultivated land is privately owned, the rest is pasture and is communally owned. Wheat and rye are the main crops, with fruit and vegetables to a small extent. 60% of the households own between thirteen and thirty-four acres. Holdings are divided into a number of small plots. The size of holdings per household is declining with the increase of population, because children divide their father’s land equally between them. Daughters sometimes take a share with their brothers, sometimes they do not. A system of share-cropping is found but the arrangement is always a temporary matter from season to season. Ownership carries the right of sale. It is defined mainly by village memory of acquisition and by use. An examination of income from land and of essential outgo shows that about forty acres is necessary for a household of average size, to provide not only for substance, but for weddings and new buildings, and give some security against bad harvests and other misfortunes. Chapter XII. - Occupations and Services Share-cropping and herding provide alternative sources of income for the poorer villages. There is little casual labour in the village. Skilled craftsmen, such as builders, carpenters, ironworkers, work in the villages, often as a supplement to tilling their fields. Some trade in animals and agricultural products goes on in the villages. Some villages have shops, and craft needs are met partly on the spot. For a wide range of articles and services, the villages are dependent on the towns. Migrant labour provides an important part of the village income. Many migrant labourers are skilled building trade craftsmen, who can earn up to about £1 a day, others are unskilled, and earn less than half. The very poor households tend to provide the unskilled, the better off households the skilled migrant labour. Nearly all the men come home at least from December till April, if not more frequently. Chapter XIII. - Household Economics The household is an economic unit, under the control of its head. A woman may own land and this may give her more power in the house. Sons who earn money in the towns should give it to their fathers. The men of a household |