By Francine Howarth
Life in a Harem and the practices defined as part of life within a Sultan’s palace is unacceptable and sexist for 21st-century thinking. Thus the era in which Joanna Thomson’s novel is set, it is nonetheless a safer place than most for those sold into slavery, and a strict hierarchy exists, and woe betides anyone who breaks the rules. Strange as it may seem, women within Harems of the Ottoman Empire stretching to the Barbary Coast, had more rights and power than most European women had within marriages, so sayeth the renowned English aristocrat Lady Mary Wortley-Montague, who stated in one of her 18th century letters: “The Turks govern their country and their wives govern them. In no other country do women enjoy themselves as much.”
Be assured the author has researched her subject matter in depth…
View original post 337 more words
Viv Drewa - The Owl Lady 