The resm-i mücerred was a
bachelor
A bachelor is a man who is not and never has been married.Bachelors are, in Pitt & al.'s phrasing, "men who live independently, outside of their parents' home and other institutional settings, who are neither married nor cohabitating". ().
Etymo ...
tax in the
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...
, related to the
resm-i çift
The Resm-i Çift (''Çift Akçesi'' or ''Çift resmi'') was a tax in the Ottoman Empire. It was a tax on farmland, assessed at a fixed annual rate per çift, and paid by land-owning Muslims. Some Imams and some civil servants were exempted from the ...
and the
resm-i bennâk.
The amount payable varied from year to year and from region to region, but the tax was payable annually, in March, to the
timar
A timar was a land grant by the sultans of the Ottoman Empire between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, with an annual tax revenue of less than 20,000 akçes. The revenues produced from the land acted as compensation for military service. A ...
holder (nominally a sipahi) or to the tax-farmer (
iltizam
An iltizam () was a form of tax farm that appeared in the 15th century in the Ottoman Empire. The system began under Mehmed the Conqueror and was abolished during the Tanzimat reforms in 1856.
Iltizams were sold off by the government to wealthy n ...
). However, a
muafname (tax exemption) might excuse a person, or a village, or an entire social group from paying resm-i mücerred and related taxes; alternatively, örfi taxes might be lifted from a community but they would still have to pay resm-i mücerred.
Resm-i mücerred was paid by landless poor or unmarried
peasant
A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer with limited land-ownership, especially one living in the Middle Ages under feudalism and paying rent, tax, fees, or services to a landlord. In Europe, three classes of peasan ...
s who did not have sufficient resources to qualify for the
resm-i çift
The Resm-i Çift (''Çift Akçesi'' or ''Çift resmi'') was a tax in the Ottoman Empire. It was a tax on farmland, assessed at a fixed annual rate per çift, and paid by land-owning Muslims. Some Imams and some civil servants were exempted from the ...
and the
resm-i bennâk land-taxes - whose names, taken literally, refer to one "
çift" of land, and a half-çift, respectively. This structure may have been directly inherited from the
Byzantine
The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...
system of land taxes, in areas which were conquered by the Ottomans.
One 19th-century tahrir, from a group of villages in a district which is now in
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...
, set çift resmi at 50
akçe
The ''akçe'' or ''akça'' (anglicized as ''akche'', ''akcheh'' or ''aqcha''; ; , , in Europe known as '' asper'') was a silver coin mainly known for being the chief monetary unit of the Ottoman Empire. It was also used in other states includi ...
s, bennak resmi at 18 akçes,
caba resmi (for farmers who rented rather than owned land) was 12 akçes, and mücerred resmi was valued at only 6 akçes; in this case, the tahrir set aside tax revenue from the villages to support a local charitable foundation (or trust), rather than returning it directly to the state. Comparison of different tax records suggests that the ratio between tax rates for bachelors and for established farmers may have narrowed over time.
[
Tax records show that mücerred were more likely to migrate to other areas; they had fewer ties to the land, and may have been more vulnerable. Migrant mücerred were more likely to make their way to a growing town; some may have moved locally, but a few would travel to ]Istanbul
Istanbul is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, constituting the country's economic, cultural, and historical heart. With Demographics of Istanbul, a population over , it is home to 18% of the Demographics ...
from a distant district.
See also
Bachelor tax
A bachelor tax is a punitive tax imposed on unmarried men. In the modern era, many countries do vary tax rates by marital status, so current references to bachelor taxes are typically implicit rather than explicit; and given the state of tax la ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Resm-i mucerred
Taxation in the Ottoman Empire
Taxes promoting marriage and reproduction