Lady Mary Wortley Turkish Embassy Letters

Throughout The Turkish Embassy Letters, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu writes a lot about her observations of Oriental (eastern) culture. She discusses Turkish architecture, literature, doctoral practices, relationships between the sexes, and religion. Through her observations and conclusions, she makes connections to British life and Western society. In the letters, Montagu takes the approach of a feminist (though the concept of feminism didn’t quite exist yet) in her representation of Eastern women. In particular, she describes Turkish women in very non-prejudice ways, suggesting that they have more freedom than most Western women. She defends Turkish culture and goes against literature produced by the colonialist male travelers who emphasized the culture of Easterners as backwards and oppressive. Montagu makes a point to explain that these travel narratives were

Montagu continuously argues that Eastern women are indeed quite free. In letter XXX, addressed to Lady Mar, Montagu writes, “Upon the whole, I look upon the Turkish women as the only free people in the land. The very Divan pays respect to them and the Grand Signor himself, when a pasha is executed, never violates the privileges of harem (or women’s apartment) which remains unstarched entire to the window. They are queens of their slaves, which the husband has no permission so much as to look upon, except it be an old woman or two that his lady chooses. ’Tis true, their law permits them four wives, but there is no instance of a man of a man of quality that makes use of this liberty, or of a woman of rank that would suffer it” (Montagu 72). In letter XXXVI, addressed to Abbé Conti, Lady Mary writes, “When I spoke of their religion I forgot to mention two particularities, one of which I had read of, but it seemed so odd I could not believe