Women in Turkey under Pressure of Inconsistent and Contradictory Legal Systems: Secular versus Islamic

As Turkey is officially a secular state and it adopts Swiss Civil Code, thestate implements secular legal system. However, as people in Turkey are predominantlyMuslim and theyare born and raised in a traditionally Muslim environment,people generally and especially women live under the influence of these two sometimescontradictory and inconsistent legal systems and customs. As a result, thereare clashes and especially Muslim women are subjected to the negative impact ofthose clashes. So for example, women who wear headscarf because of being inline with Islamic principles face problems when they want to go to school or workor engage in politics. Or when they want to keep their maiden surname which isvery mainstream practice in many Muslim societies, it becomes impossible for Muslimwomen in Turkey because of the secular Swiss Law. In the present paper thecircumstances in which Muslim women live under these inconsistent and contradictorylegal systems will be studied.