Peirce Study Guide

As you read Peirce’s “Myths and Realities of the Harem,” focus upon the following points.

• P. 3: What is the meaning of “Orgiastic sex became a metaphor for power corrupted?” 
• p. 3   Discuss: Family politics, not sex, was the fundamental dynamic of the harem.
• Meanings of harem:
  1) to be forbidden and
  2) to be sacred, or taboo, inviolable 
• Hareem: a sanctuary or a sacred place. 
• p. 5 Harem: a word of respect connoting religious purity and honor
  For example: al-Haram al-Sharif- Temple mount; Haram; Makka and Madina
• p. 5: The inner precinct of the royal place was called the imperial harem because the sultan lived there.
• P. 5: Women related to the male head of a household, not always in a sexual role.
• p. 6: Seconnd myth: Precluded the exercise by women of any influence beyond the walls of the harem
• p. 6: Private v. Public dichotomy
• p. 7: Islamic manifestation
  -Assimilation of Western notions
• What did 'private' mean in the Ottoman context?
• Role of female elders, women of status
• p. 7: Ownership and exploitation of property
• p. 8 Public and private notions not congruent with gender
• p. 8: The degree of seclusion from the common gaze served as an index of the status of the men as well as the woman of means.
  Ottoman males of rank also did not venture out too often into the public arena, and not without a retinue
• p.8: privileged vs. Common, sacred vs. Profane undercuts gender distinctions.
  —Kass and amm: privileged vs. vulgar
• P.12: One's status was marked by the extent to which one could penetrate the interior of another's household, most of all, that of the sultan.