Suchergebnisse

As Margaret Meriwether notes in her Introduction to this well-crafted study, until recently
there has been little history of the Middle Eastern family. There were "histories of
families," which is not the same as a solidly researched sub-discipline within the broader
field of Middle Eastern history, because these "did not deal with the family as an
institution, its evolution over time, nor the relationship between family and society" (p. 2).
The difficulty derives in part (as it does for other sub-fields of Middle Eastern history, particularly
social history) from problems of sources that are partial, limited, or sometimes non-existent, and
often where they do exist are unavailable. There are few written records on certain subjects,
particularly private lives. Scholars of social history and anthropology have relied increasingly on
the use of Islamic court records as sources for social history. The growing body of works
produced from this scholarship has been highly sophisticated, nuanced, and exciting, opening
windows into the history of private life in the Middle East. This book is a welcome contribution to
this growing field of scholarship.