German researcher August Hacksthausen, who was in Armenia in the first half of the 19th century, writes that Armenian women have equal rights as compared to other Asian peoples around the world. Young women are free to get married for love, not by force, as it is in neighboring nations. After the marriage, the bride does not speak out and while leaving the house she covers her face with veil, but later on she acquired so much rights as not even the European women of the time had[1]. According to August Hacksthausen, before marriage, Armenian girls can speak freely and communicate with young people[2].
At the end of the 19th century, in parallel with discussions on the issue of women’s emancipation, more space was given to their problems in the Armenian press. For instance, in 1884, the forced marriage of an Armenian girl in the town of Hachn of the Ottoman Empire caused a stir. A girl named Nargiz was engaged when she is nine years old, but when she was 15, she chose another guy to get engaged with. The Armenian bishop and influential Armenians of the city did not approve that behavior, so about 150 people gathered at the girl’s house and frightened her, forcing her to marry her former fiancé. The Masis newspaper criticized the behavior of the bishop and the influential Armenians, calling it barbarism, and an incident that has caused disgust and anger everywhere[3].
[1] See Barōn Ōgostos fon Haksthauzenay chanaparhordut’iwn yayskuys Kovkasu, ayn ē i Hays ev i Virs (Baron August von Hacksthausen’s journey to the Caucasus, i.e. to Armenia and to Iberia), Vagharshapat, 1872, pp. 198-199.
[2] See Etchmiadzin newspaper, Vagharshapat, 1973, N4, p. 127.
[3] See Masis newspaper, Constantinople, 1884, N 3732, p. 94, N 3735, pp. 166-167.