Toxic Marriages: Poison and Divorce in Ottoman Families

Chris Gratien, Georgetown University

If divorce cases from the late Ottoman period can teach us anything, it is that sometimes an unhappy marriage can create a toxic home environment, quite literally. One might be surprised to find incidents of spousal poisoning in the archival record, only to subsequently learn there are numerous such cases. In an article about poisons and the wives that use them, Ebru Aykut refers to poison as a method of killing especially employed by women, who could easily slip harmful substances into their husbands' coffee or soup. The proliferation of poisons in the Ottoman Empire during the nineteenth century such as arsenic, which was used to kill rats, only made this easier. Women had complicated reasons for seeking such recourse within a legal system that did not necessarily offer them an easy way to divorce, which could only be obtained with consent of the husband or by a ruling from the sharia court.

However, one does not simply poison a husband. There are strategies and risks involved. If the plot was discovered or the man survived, wrath certainly awaited. But as Aykut explains in her article, a certain leniency was to be expected as individuals like women and children were seen as somehow lacking rationality and prone to such misguided acts. Forgiveness in this realm was perhaps a marker of proper patriarchy in a system where women, though in many ways legally equal to men, were in practice held in a subordinate position. Thus, while poisoning one's husband was surely attempted murder, poisoning cases, particularly failed ones, were not always treated as such.

So, what happens when the tables are turned and the poisoner is a man? Here we have two such cases, both surrounding an issue of divorce. They are both from 1861, which was an interesting between-stage of legal reform in the Ottoman Empire as well as the beginning of a period of increased concern about the circulation of poisons. The first involves a well-to-do bride of Bursa named Zehra and her ne'er-do-well husband named Mehmed, who apparently woke up grumpy one morning during a Ramadan visit to Zehra's family and decided to put poison in the coffee of his mother and father-in-law after their pre-dawn meal (sahur). Perhaps the "perverse thoughts (efkâr-ı faside)" that had driven him to the act had to the do with inheritance; his father-in-law Mehmed Ağa was part of Bursa's elite. Whatever the case, the in-laws were able to realize what had happened and sought immediate medical treatment, saving them from death by poison. The incident seemed to be a de facto end of marriage as the family had lost all confidence in the newest member of the family. Zehra brought her belongings from Mehmed's home and moved in with her parents, and Mehmed was quite predictably tossed out.

Yet, the vagaries of the law complicated the scenario. Zehra's desire for a divorce required either Mehmed's consent or an intervention from the court. The former seemed unattainable. The letter from Zehra's cousin (with whom she was staying in Istanbul for a change of air from her parents' place in Bursa) explains that while Zehra had tried hard to secure a divorce, Mehmed was resisting; Zehra's cousin described Mehmed as a stubborn and cruel man (anut ve bir kaç ayâlına dahi böyle cevretmiş bir adam). Again, financial considerations were likely also involved in his refusal to grant a divorce. Thus, the only recourse was the Islamic courts, where the testimony of Zehra's affluent male family members would likely have the upper-hand. For this reason, Mehmed was required to come to Zehra's current place of residence, Istanbul, for the trial. Unpleasant financial consequences were likely awaiting Mehmed, but there does not seem to be any mention of prosecution for attempting to poison his in-laws, who survived the attempt. Rather, the poisoning incident served as justification for a divorce proving complicated to obtain.

Whatever troubles Zehra Hanım and her family went through with their stubborn young groom (who put a little more than sugar in their coffee) actually seem to pale in comparison to this second case involving a woman named Ayşe and her husband Rıfat Paşa. In a letter from the divan consciously stressing the formerness of Rıfat Paşa's position as Kaymakam of Revandüz in modern-day Iraq, the details of his and Ayşe's marital struggles leading up to the event in question are not made clear. What we know is that Ayşe claimed to have been poisoned by her husband, who resided in Deir ez-Zor. Receiving no help from him, Ayşe was forced to sell her belongings amounting to 32,000 kürüş in value during an arduous journey from the far reaches of the Ottoman frontier to the capital in search of treatment. Having lost complete trust in her husband, she sought legal protection from the personage of the Sultan (rikâb-ı kamertâb) himself through an arzuhal (the document is from July of 1861, meaning that Sultan Abdülaziz had just ascended to the throne). The letter states that Ayşe wanted to be divorced from Rıfat and that he should pay the expenses she incurred for treatment, promising severe punishment if the poisoning accusation was in fact valid.

With these cases added to the mix, it is worth considering why spouses were so frequently trying to poison one another. It is clear from the cases outlined in Aykut's article that murder by poison was treated differently than murder by knife or revolver. Poisoners were not subject to capital punishment under Hanefi law, because if the victim consumed the poison on his or her own accord, even if it had been slipped into a food or drink, then it was somehow a different category of guilt. However, following legal reforms in 1858 with the incremental implementation of a modern criminal law in the Ottoman Empire, authorities meted out harsher punishments to poisoners. The new law put poisoning on the same footing with other methods of killing because it constituted ending another person's life. Aykut describes the case of Fatma, a woman who confessed in 1862 to poisoning her husband and was sentenced to be hanged. Thus, it would be interesting to know if the men in question here were subject to such punishments, though since the poisonings did not result in death, there may have been no legal action beyond divorce. Just as female poisoners may have seen arsenic as a means of escaping an unhappy marriage, alleged poisoning attempts by husbands in both cases appear here as similar justification of dissolving a marriage based on "loss of trust."

Source: BOA, A-MKT-DV 195/77 (12 Muharrem 1278); 209/58 (7 Cemaziülevvel 1278).

poison

possibly poison