Disastrous marriages in Turkish novels of the Tanzimat period

Tanzimat, which ushered in a new era, brought about changes in many areas. One of these areas is the changes in social life. Undoubtedly, the institution of the family also had its share of the changes in this process. The basis of the changes was the conflicts arising from the inability to adapt to the new Western civilization. One of the sources where the changes in the family, which constitutes the basic structure of society, can be observed is novels. The Tanzimat novelist, who attaches importance to the family, considers it his duty to protect the family institution in the face of the changes. For this reason, he deals with issues such as marriage, male-female relations in an educational and guiding manner. In addition, he aims to teach a lesson by trying to explain the reasons for the disastrous end of marriage. In this study, marriages with disastrous endings from the Turkish novels of the Tanzimat period written between 1870-1896 were analyzed and inferences were made about the family life of the period. The factors that cause marriages to end in disaster were identified as infidelity and suspicion of infidelity, jealousy/trickery of the rival, arranged marriage forced by parents, the institution of bondage, religious difference, debauchery and polygamy, and the novels were analyzed under these headings. It was concluded that the attitudes and behaviors of the writers of the period were common, and that their reactions to women or men who preserved or broke the marriage union were realized on the axis of reward and punishment.