Marriage Lessons from My Turkish Grandmother

The stories my grandmother, my anneanne, told me when I was a child are anything but children’s stories. They are folktales that have a common theme – the triumph of wily wives over evil husbands (jealous, repressive skinflints) through crafty subterfuge. My grandmother always launched into these torrid tales as if she were telling them for the first time, and the contradiction between her placid, proper widowhood and her clear delight in the salacious plots of her stories horrified yet fascinated me. I too delighted in these gory, grotesque tales, and revelled in their message of Old World female empowerment.