ABSTRACT
Many years ago, when I was still a newcomer to Turkey, a woman from the Anatolian countryside who was working as a cleaner in a bank in Ankara told me the following story about her daughter’s marriage:
The daughter was about twelve years old when her parents divorced. Her mother moved to Ankara and started to work as a maidservant, while the girl stayed in the village with her father and other relatives. The girl got engaged to a boy from the same village when she was 17 years old. This boy was a couple of years older than the girl. Unfortunately, he died in a road accident shortly before the wedding.
