According to archival documents female suicide in the late Ottoman society

Suicide is a phenomenon that has persisted from past to present. Sociology and psychology specialists have long been interested in the phenomenon of suicide, but it has recently come under the scope of social history. The phenomenon of suicide has been handled in a multidimensional way depending on the field of specialization and the question that the research focuses on, and a large literature on suicide has emerged. In addition to the cultural, economic and social factors that are effective in suicide, studies have focused on the cause, place, time, gender and age of the suicide. In addition, questions such as how suicide occurs, what the method used in suicide is, why the suicide is committed, and to what extent the gender, economic and social world of the person is compatible with the method preferred by the person have been tried to be answered. Similar questions and approaches have been the focus of historians interested in suicide. Although there are a few studies on suicides in Ottoman society, there is no research that directly focuses on women's suicides. In order to fill this gap in the field, this thesis focuses on women's suicides in the late Ottoman society. In this context, this thesis seeks to answer the questions of how suicide was perceived in the society and what the attitudes towards suicide were; for what reasons women committed suicide, by what methods they attempted suicide, and when and where the suicide took place.In addition, how women's suicides were handled and investigated as a judicial case is also evaluated. The main source of the thesis is the official documents found in the Ottoman Archives. In addition, in order to make sense of the data in the documents, some novels and newspaper reports written during the period were also consulted from time to time. In addition, scientific studies on suicide cases, especially in the Ottoman period, were also utilized. The data obtained were analyzed in order to understand and explain women's suicides in a multidimensional way, and the numerical data were evaluated in the text as well as shown in graphs.