THE LEGAL AND SOCIAL STATUS OF WOMEN IN BACTRIAN DOCUMENTS (4TH–8TH CENTURIES)
Keywords:
Turan, Bactria, Tokharistan, early Middle Ages, Bactrian documents, history of women, legal person, marriage contract, βανο (bano), xatun, slave-girl, fraternal polyandry, household, status of women, Central Asia.Abstract
The article examines the legal and social status of women in early medieval Turan, focusing on its southern lands of Bactria and Tokharistan, on the basis of the Bactrian documents edited by Nicholas Sims-Williams. It abandons the Iranological habit of treating Bactria as a periphery of Eastern Iran or a mere continuation of Sasanian culture, and interprets the region as an integral part of a unified Turanian legal and cultural space bound to Transoxiana, Sogdiana and the nomadic Turkic world. Through an analysis of marriage contracts, administrative and legal letters, documents of protection and pardon, and seal iconography, the author demonstrates that women were recognised as legal persons who could hold rights, act as witnesses, own property including slaves, and exercise authority within the household. This status, however, was not absolute but graded according to social condition, rank and marital state. The Bactrian evidence is read first within its indigenous Turanian tradition, then compared with the Sogdian marriage contract and the Turkic institution of the xatun, while Sasanian law serves only as an external contrasting background.
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