Harem

I was born in a konak (old house), which once was the harem of a pasha," writes Alev Lytle Croutier. People around me often whispered things about harems; my own grandmother and her sister had been brought up in one." Drawing on a host of first-hand accounts and memoirs, as well as her own family history, Croutier explores life in the world s harems, from the Middle Ages to the early 20th century, focusing on the fabled Seraglio of Topkapi Palace as a paradigm for them all. We enter the slave markets and the lavish boudoirs of the sultanas; we witness the daily routines of the odalisques, and of the eunuchs who guarded the harem. Here, too, we learn of the labyrinthine political scheming among the sultan s wives, his favourites, and the valide sultana-the sultan s mother-whose power could eclipse that of the sultan himself. There were the harems of the sultans and the pashas, but there were also ‘middle-class’ harems, the households in which ordinary men and women lived out ordinary-albeit polygamous-lives. Croutier reveals their marital customs, child-rearing practices, and superstitions. Finally, she shows how this Eastern institution invaded the European imagination-in the form of decoration, costume, and art-and how Western ideas, in turn, finally eroded a system that had seemed eternal. Juxtaposing a rich array of illustrations-Western paintings, Turkish and Persian miniatures, family photographs, and even film stills-Croutier demystifies the Western erotic fantasy of the world behind the veil." This revised and updated 25th anniversary edition of Harem includes a new introduction by the author.