ANKARA, Nov 22: Turkish lawmakers on Thursday overhauled the outdated civil code in an aim to give married women more rights in this predominantly Muslim but secular country with aspirations of EU membership.

The huge reform package involving marriage and family matters overhauls a civil code which dates back to 1926, just three years after the modern Turkish republic was founded on the ashes of the Ottoman empire.

One of the most significant changes scraps a provision that “the husband is the head of the matrimonial union”, thus ending the supremacy of men in marriage and allowing women to have a say in matters relating to their union.

Under the new civil code, all assets acquired during marriage are common property rather than belonging to the spouse under whose name it was registered.

The previous regulation has prevented many women stuck in troubled marriages from filing for divorce over fears of economic uncertainty in this patriarchal society.

With the amendments, women will now be allowed to carry their maiden names along with their husband’s family name and will no longer have to get permission from their husbands to work.

The new code also raises the legal age for marriage to 18 for both sexes from 17 for men and 15 for women, and gives men the right to demand alimony from their better-off wives in case of divorce.

Another amendment lowers the minimum age requirement to adopt a child to 30 from 35 and allows single people and couples who have had their own children to be able to adopt as well.

Turkey’s Justice Minister Hikmet Sami Turk hailed the amendments as one of the most major reforms in Turkish history.

“With the amendments, the great legal revolution of 1926 has been renewed in the same spirit at the beginning of the 21st century,” he told legislators.

The reforms are scheduled to come into force next year.

The amendments are expected to improve the legal status of women in major urban areas, where women have largely integrated into working life and public administration.

But they are unlikely to make an impact in Turkey’s rural areas, especially the southeast where women receive inadequate education, are regarded as chattels and are confined to their homes in legally non-binding religious marriages in a feudal system the central authority has been unable to break.—AFP