The Economics of Female Piety in Early Sufism

This paper examines the economics of female piety between the third/ninth and sixth/twelfth centuries. It traces Sufi approaches to poverty and working for a living (kasb) as well as kasb’s intersection with marriage and women. Rereading Sufi and non-Sufi biographies and historiographies reveals that there were wealthy women who initiated marriage with renowned Sufis to gain spiritual blessings, and others who financially supported their husbands. While the piety of male Sufis was usually asserted through material poverty, the piety of female mystics was asserted through wealth and almsgiving. This paper examines this piety through different female kinships—whether mothers, wives or sisters. Similar to the spousal support of wives for their husbands, sisters very often acted as an impressive backup system for their Sufi brothers. Mothers, however, effected a great socio-religious impact through the cherished principles of a mother’s right to control her son and a son’s duty to venerate his mother. This devotion was often constraining financially and Sufis needed to pay attention to the financial implications while still pursuing progress on the Sufi path.

The Material World of Early Modern Ottoman Women: Ornaments, Robes and Domestic Furnishings in Istanbul and Bursa

The present article investigates the jewelry and domestic furnishings owned by wealthy women who died in Bursa during the early 1730s, combining the data derived from the estate inventories of the decedents with imagery, both Ottoman and non-Ottoman, dating to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This tentative linkage between the written and the visual has made it possible to ‘zoom in’ on the manner in which well-to-do females of eighteenth-century Bursa decorated their homes, and speculate about the considerations that induced them to use the most valuable textiles largely for home furnishings as opposed to garments.

The Entrepreneurial Widows of 1 Timothy

This chapter continues a focus on the Christian Bible with examination of ‘The Entrepreneurial Widows of 1 Timothy’. It argues that the exhortations and admonitions to widows (i.e. unmarried women) voiced in 1 Timothy—identified as a highly rhetorical pseudonymous letter written in Paul’s name—attests to a concern with single women’s patronage of Christ assemblies, which the writer seeks to address by having them marry. The contributor seeks to move beyond a common explanation that the letter was occasioned by ascetical teachings in which women discovered in sexual continence a new freedom from traditional gender roles. The chapter aims to establish that the letter has a broader economic concern with widows, through an historical exploration of the socio-economic status of women who were artisans in the imperial urban economy. It identifies the means by which women gained skill in trades, the roles they played in the ‘adaptive family’ in which households of tradespeople plied their trade often at economic levels of subsistence. New Testament texts point to artisan women, some of them probably widows, who played important roles of patronage and leadership in assemblies of Christ followers. By attending to levels of poverty in the urban empire, traditional views of the widows of 1 Timothy as wealthier women assigned to gender roles are seen in a new light through consideration of spouses accustomed to working alongside their husbands and taking on the businesses after they died. While the lives of these women are largely invisible, attention to benefactions of wealthy women to synagogues and associations gives insight into the lives of women acting independently in various kinds of social gatherings.

Peggy Guggenheim’s and Bryher’s Investment

“Peggy Guggenheim’s and Bryher’s Investment: How Financial Speculation Created a Female Modernist Tradition” focuses on the patronage of two wealthy women, Peggy Guggenheim and Bryher, in order to examine how these patrons shaped modernism produced by women. The chapter also considers other female modernists such as H.D. and Mina Loy. I examine how modernist patronage required both a living subsidy and a willingness to provide pipelines to publication. Further, I argue that in these two cases, the source of the money helps predict the mode of patronage and ultimately the canon; the patron’s literary and artistic investment replicates the financial investments from which they derive their fortunes and predicts their willingness to underwrite experimental projects.

Of Grim Witches and Showy Lady-Devils: Wealthy Women in Literature and Film

Imagining super rich women in the real and fictional world has long been a struggle. Those few depictions that do exist are scattered across time periods and literary genres, reflecting the legal restrictions that, at different points in time, would not allow women to accumulate assets independent of the patriarchal forces in their lives. The scarcity of extremely wealthy women in literature and film is confirmed by Forbes magazine’s list of the fifteen richest fictional characters that features forty different fictional men and only nine women, with never more than two female characters nominated in a single year. This article explores the depiction of three exceptionally wealthy women: Cruella de Vil in The Hundred and One Dalmatians (1956) by Dodie Smith, Miss Havisham in Great Expectations (1861) by Charles Dickens, and the figure of the stepmother in various adaptations of “Cinderella.” I demonstrate how the protagonists’ wealth allows them to manipulate others and disconnect themselves from patriarchal and societal expectations. Further, I argue that these affluent antagonists are “rogued” by their respective narratives, highlighting their perceived anti-feminine and emasculating behaviour resulting in a mode of narration that greedily gazes at and shames their appearances and supposed unattractiveness. While this genealogy of rich rogues reiterates the narrow scope of imagining wealthy women on the page and on the screen, there are moments in the narratives that disrupt stereotypical depictions of these wealthy characters who defy the labels imposed on them.

Fenomena Nikah Misyār Perspektif Pemikiran Hukum Islam

This article discusses about the misyār marriage as considered a model of marriage by some to be odd because it is different from the normal model of marriage that is carried out by a married couple who are Muslim in general. This type of research is descriptive qualitative which is examined by the approach of Islamic law. The results of the study show that the conditions and pillars of marriage are indeed fulfilled, the functions and responsibilities of the husband and wife continue to run normally and are not limited by time. Both parties intend and commit to perpetuating the marriage together forever. However, in practice the wife or woman is the dominant role in realizing the marriage to the point that she does not demand her husband to fulfill his basic rights after marriage later. The trigger for this marriage is the great desire of wealthy women who are financially well-established to get a mate and a place to devote affection from themselves and their children. Viewed in terms of the motivation for the marriage to take place by both parties there is no problem.

Dictating with Dollars

Wealthy women’s understanding of financial independence and sisterhood are themes that are crucial to the ideas of women wealthy throughout the book. The Women’s Trade Union League (WTUL) largely failed to effectively develop a cross-class coalition of wealthy women and labor women. By studying the WTUL in comparison to Grace Dodge’s working girls clubs and YWCA work, and the support of wealthy women for the 1909 Shirtwaist Strike, the chapter explores why many wealthy women sought gender equality. Their interactions with working-class women and their desire to control their own finances drove them to link financial independence with political equality. When the wealthy held the purse strings, cross-class cooperation, while potentially empowering to laboring women, was also a potent source of conflict. Working women resented the fact that Margaret Dreier Robins and Mary Dreier dominated the funding for the WTUL and insisted on having their way, despite the sisters’ deep commitment to feminism and their professed desire for cross-class coalition.

Following the Money

Chapter 1 examines how suffragists recruited wealthy women to the woman suffrage movement, who these donors were, and why they decided to give their money—and sometimes their time—to fight for political equality. This chapter argues that focusing on their feminism highlights a strand of suffragism that called for gender equality rather than emphasized maternalism, the belief that women as mothers (or potential mothers) had the right and the duty to vote in order to protect children and clean up government. Having experienced both the power of money and its limitations influenced the way women linked economic independence and political equality, which they believed were necessary whether one earned wages in a factory, was a professional with a college degree, or inherited a large fortune. Susan B. Anthony had understood that their donations were necessary, and Alva Belmont and Katharine McCormick gave donations essential to winning the right to vote for women.