Women’s Privacy in the Family: A Comparative Analysis

Definitions and examples of the privacy based on different principles are disputed and the issue of women's privacy is even more complicated. In the West, women's privacy is influenced by liberal and feminist teachings. Accordingly, individualism in the family environment causes family ties to be based solely on personal interests and so privacy is linked to a materialistic view, and as a result, family roles such as motherhood have declined. While in Islamic principles, based on the needs of each other, the family and its interests are given priority and ethics becomes the main axis of the formation of relationships within the family. Therefore, women's privacy is defined in such a way that in spite of preserving her human dignity and freedom, it is not in conflict with the higher interests of the family. In recent decades, important issues such as the relationship between family roles and women's privacy or women's right to decide on family-related matters, including reproduction, have been very challenging in practice and opinion, which is explained and analyzed in this article.