Assoc. Prof. Dr. Fatma Sel Turhan’s article, “Marital Issues of Bosnian Christians in the Nineteenth Century: Authorisations, Interventions and Prohibitions,” published in the Q1 journal The History of the Family, examines Ottoman state intervention in Christian marriages in nineteenth-century Bosnia. Drawing on extensive Ottoman archival sources, the study addresses interreligious and transnational marriages, forced marriage claims, annulments, clerical objections, marriage taxes, and wedding expenses. It argues that these interventions reflected concerns extending beyond religion to public order, imperial sovereignty, legal pluralism, and communal relations, highlighting marriage as a key arena where state authority, communal autonomy, and individual agency intersected.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Fatma Sel Turhan’s article, “Marital Issues of Bosnian Christians in the Nineteenth Century: Authorisations, Interventions and Prohibitions,” published in The History of the Family, examines the complex relationship between Christian marriage practices and Ottoman state authority in nineteenth-century Bosnia. Focusing on cases that prompted the intervention of the Ottoman central administration, the article shows how marriage could become a politically and legally sensitive issue when it crossed religious, communal, or imperial boundaries.
Drawing on a wide range of documents from the Ottoman Archives, the study analyzes several categories of marital disputes and restrictions. These include marriages between non-Muslim women and foreign men, marriages between Christian women and Muslim men, allegations of forced marriage, requests for annulment, clerical objections to second and consecutive marriages, and disputes concerning marriage taxes and the financial burdens associated with weddings. Through these cases, the article demonstrates that marriage was not treated simply as a private or confessional matter, but as an issue that could intersect with questions of state authority, communal jurisdiction, and social order.
By examining marriage as a site where state authority, communal autonomy, legal pluralism, and individual agency intersected, Turhan’s research offers a nuanced contribution to the social and legal history of the late Ottoman Empire. It also broadens our understanding of how the Ottoman administration governed non-Muslim populations in a politically sensitive region, showing that regulation was often adaptive, negotiated, and responsive to changing social and political circumstances.