Index

IES: Iran

 

IRAN (Kurds, Basseri)

 

IndexMiddle East Iran

 

 

 

Rural Iranians betroth children “very young”, while marriage is delayed till 14 (girls) and eighteen (boys) (Arasteh and Arasteh, 1964:p156)[1] or 12 and 15[2]. The minimum lawful age of marriage in 1957 was fifteen (girls) and eighteen (boys), although courts sometimes permitted marriage at ages thirteen (g) and fifteen (b) (Levy, 1957)[3]. “After months of deliberation, Iranian authorities recently approved a law that requires court approval for the marriage of girls below the age of 13 and boys younger than 15”[4].

 

Early marriage for both men and women was a common practice in Iran (Moezi, 1967[5], as cited by Aghajanian). According to the 19th century travellers to Iran, children were often betrothed when they were young, although the wedding did not take place for some years (Rice, 1923[6], as cited by Aghajanian). In the past, children were occasionally betrothed in infancy and they would become couples when the female was about 14 and the male about 16 years of age (Piggot, 1874[7], as cited by Aghajanian). “In traditional Iran parents often arranged the betrothal and even marriage of their children at an early age”, legally so before puberty. Consummation would occur at physical maturity only (Wills, 1886)[8]. From early childhood, “until recently girls married before pubertal onset” (Friedl, 1978 [1985:p206, 209])[9], but this has been delayed since about 1970, partially because of the legal age of marriage for girls raised to 15 (Friedl, 1981:p17)[10]. A recent study suggests marriage ages 17.10 +/- 4.24 years[11]. “Men are strongly advised not to imitate sexual intercourse with girls under the age of nine, even though they are permitted to marry them. Some of the legal scholars have even considered it forbidden […]” (Haeri, 1989)[12]. Premenstrual girls could be divorced at any time. According to the 19th century travellers to Iran, children were often betrothed when they were young, although the wedding did not take place for some years (Rice, 1923[13], as cited by Aghajanian). In the past, children were occasionally betrothed in infancy and they would become couples when the female was about 14 and the male about 16 years of age (Piggot, 1874[14], as cited by Aghajanian). Under Khomeni, Shari’a [Islamic Law] re-established a minimum age of 13 for marriage of girls[15]. Girls were permitted “as young as nine [[16]], even seven in some cases, to be married if a physician signs a certificate agreeing to their sexual maturity” (Goodwin, 1994:p114[17]; cf. Ladier-Fouladi, 1997:p198-9)[18]. The doctor was said to consult the family without seeing the girl. A ban was placed on coitus below the age of seven.

 

Rhymes include oral, anal and genital themes (Friedl, 1997:p235)[19]. Among the Jews, “[m]asturbation is strongly opposed on religious grounds but it is said to be common. Informants claim that when the boy is old enough to ejaculate, he is taken to a [M]uslim prostitute; in the past he would be married off to avoid the problem” (Loeb, 1977:p72)[20]. After toddlerhood, children are explicitly discouraged from playing together by the warning that they might transform into the opposite sex.

Drew (1997)[21] stated that “[l]ittle girls of all ages are kept well covered. In many provincial towns, girl babies are hidden completely under their mother’s chador on the street. Toddler girls wear chadors often with only a pacifier protruding from its folds. […] Little boys are often bare from the waist down, obviating the need for diapers outside. At any age, males may urinate openly in the street or at the roadside”. [The Iranian chador of 1970-1 was worn in public “starting before the age of puberty”[22]].

Prior to puberty, male children gain a much more extensive knowledge of female anatomy at all stages of the life cycle, and all stages of pregnancy and lactation, by virtue of the fact that their mothers take them to the public baths with them on “women’s day. […] It is up to the bath attendants to decide, based on their own observations, whether a young boy is too old to be present on women’s day. Clearly men retain in adulthood images of what they saw in the bathhouse during childhood”. On sexual behaviour:

 

“Children do not play unsupervised. An invitation to a child to play at the house of a neighbor or a schoolmate always includes the mother. Such invitations are in any case rare, as are all social interactions with nonkin. Children, in general, play with their cousins under the watchful eye of all mothers. Female children are watched very carefully. Access to information on sex-rehearsal play would be severely hampered by cultural taboos on admitting anything detrimental about one’s children, especially to nonkin”.

 

The attitude toward sexually abusive experiences seems remarkable:

 

“Since marriages can be contracted at any point after a girl has reached the age of 9, it is legally feasible for a very little girl to be married to a man of any age, and thus be physically at his mercy. This no doubt constitutes the broadest category of potential sexual abuse of children. One of the strongest arguments made in Iran against the custody of children, particularly girls, being given to the mother, is that on her remarriage, the children will be in danger of sexual abuse from the new husband. Sexual abuse of children, particularly little girls, often occurs at the hands of uncles and cousins staying under the same roof. In such cases, the child’s mother is inevitably blamed for leaving her child unguarded, and little outrage is directed at the abuser. Sexual abuse of children in a family setting is not the concern of the police, nor are there any relevant social agencies to which it could be reported. A young servant boy would be withdrawn from the household by his parents if he were the victim of abuse. Only in the case of a young servant girl could the police be implicated, and then only if her virginity had been certified prior to employment” (Guljick and Guljick, 1978 [1979:p513-4])[23].

 

According to Hojat et al. (1999)[24], Iranians in the United States in general, and women in particular, compared with their counterparts in Iran, expressed more permissive attitudes toward premarital sex and sex education.

 

 


Additional reading:

 

§         Momeni, Djamchid A. (Aug., 1972) The Difficulties of Changing the Age at Marriage in Iran, J Marriage & Family 34,3545-51

§         Charles Recknagel/Azam Gorgin (2003) Human-Rights Activists Win Partial Victory In Battle Against Child Marriage

§         Iran girl gets 100 lashes for sex, BBC News, 24 February, 2005 [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4295111.stm]

 

 

 

Janssen, D. F., Growing Up Sexually. Volume I. World Reference Atlas. 0.2 ed. 2004. Berlin: Magnus Hirschfeld Archive for Sexology

Last revised: Nov 2005

 

 

 

 

 



[1] Arasteh, A. R. & Arasteh, J. (1964) Man and Society in Iran. Leiden [Holland]: Brill

[2] Mehryar, A. H. & Tashakkori, G. A. (1978) Sex and Parental Education as Determinants of Marital Aspirations and Attitudes of a Group of Iranian Youth, J Marriage & Fam 40, 3:629-37, at p630

[3] Levy, R. (1957) The Social Structure of Islam. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2nd ed.

[4] Charles Recknagel/Azam Gorgin (2002) Human-Rights Activists Win Partial Victory In Battle Against Child Marriage, RFE (June 28, 2002) [http://www.parstimes.com/women/child_marriage.html]

[5] Moezi, A. (1967) Marital characteristics in Iran. Proceedings of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population, Sydney Conference, p976-82

[6] Rice, C. C. (1923) Persian Women and their Ways. London: Seely, Service Co.

[7] Piggot, J. (1874) Persia: Ancient and  Modern. London: Henry S. King & Co. Aghajanian: Although such young marriages have not totally disappeared, legal and actual age of marriage has increased significantly compared to the historical description of child marriages. Both legal changes and social changes have influenced the increase in the age of marriage. A major development regarding the timing of marriage was secularization of the marital ceremony and civil registration of vital events. For many centuries marriage was basically a religious act and was recorded by a local religious trustee. In 1930, along with other changes introduced by the modernizing government of Reza Shah, the recording of vital events (birth, marriage, divorce, and death) became secular. Also age of marriage was brought into the domain of civil law and a minimum of age of marriage of 15 years for girls and 18 years for boys was prescribed by law which went into effect for the first time in 1935 (Momeni, 1972). Article 1041 of the Iranian Civil code, which went into effect in 1935, states “the marriage of females before reaching the full age of 15 and that of males before reaching the full age of 18 is forbidden. Nevertheless, in cases where proper reasons justify it, upon the proposal of the Public Prosecutor and by sanction of the courts exemption from age restriction can be accorded. But in any case exemption from age restriction cannot be granted to females below full age of 13 and for males below the full age of 15”. The law stipulated that all individuals who are instrumental in arranging marriages below the legal minimum age may receive penalties if convicted. Aghajanian, A. (Dec, 2001) Family and Family Change in Iran. Paper to be published as a chapter in Diversity in Families: A Global Perspective edited by Charles B. Hennon and Timothy H. Brubaker, Belmont, Ca: Wadsworth Publishing Company, forthcoming; Momeni, D. A. (1972) The Difficulties of Changing the Age at Marriage in Iran, J Marriage & Fam 34,3:545-51

[8] Wills, C. J. (1886) Persia As It Is. London: Sampson, Low Maston, Searle & Rivington

[9] Friedl, E. (1978 [1985]) Parents and children in a village in Iran, in Fathi, A. (Ed.) Women and the Family in Iran. Leiden [Holland]: Brill, p195-211

[10] Friedl, E. (1981) Women and the Division of Labor in an Iranian Village, MERIP Reports 95:12-8, 31

[11] Kazerooni, T, Talei, A. R., Sadeghi Hassanabadi, A., Arasteh, M. M. Saalabian, J. (2000) Reproductive behaviour in women in Shiraz, Islamic Republic of Iran, East Mediterr Health J 6,2-3:517-21

[12] Haeri, Sh. (1989) Law of Desire. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press

[13] Rice, C. C. (1923) Persian Women and their Ways. London: Seely, Service Co.

[14] Piggot, J. (1874) Persia: Ancient and  Modern. London: Henry S. King & Co. Aghajanian: Although such young marriages have not totally disappeared, legal and actual age of marriage has increased significantly compared to the historical description of child marriages. Both legal changes and social changes have influenced the increase in the age of marriage. A major development regarding the timing of marriage was secularization of the marital ceremony and civil registration of vital events. For many centuries marriage was basically a religious act and was recorded by a local religious trustee. In 1930, along with other changes introduced by the modernizing government of Reza Shah, the recording of vital events (birth, marriage, divorce, and death) became secular. Also age of marriage was brought into the domain of civil law and a minimum of age of marriage of 15 years for girls and 18 years for boys was prescribed by law which went into effect for the first time in 1935 (Momeni, 1972). Article 1041 of the Iranian Civil code, which went into effect in 1935, states “the marriage of females before reaching the full age of 15 and that of males before reaching the full age of 18 is forbidden. Nevertheless, in cases where proper reasons justify it, upon the proposal of the Public Prosecutor and by sanction of the courts exemption from age restriction can be accorded. But in any case exemption from age restriction cannot be granted to females below full age of 13 and for males below the full age of 15”. The law stipulated that all individuals who are instrumental in arranging marriages below the legal minimum age may receive penalties if convicted. Aghajanian, A. (Dec, 2001) Family and Family Change in Iran. Paper to be published as a chapter in Diversity in Families: A Global Perspective edited by Charles B. Hennon and Timothy H. Brubaker, Belmont, Ca: Wadsworth Publishing Company, forthcoming; Momeni, D. A. (1972) The Difficulties of Changing the Age at Marriage in Iran, J Marriage & Fam 34,3:545-51

[15] Kian, A. (1995) Gendered Occupation and Women's Status in Post-Revolutionary Iran, Middle Eastern Studies 31,3:407-21

[16] Cf. Kian, A. (1997) Women and Politics in Post-Islamist Iran: The Gender Conscious Drive to Change, Br J Middle Eastern Studies 24,1:75-96, at p77

[17] Goodwin, J. (1994) Price of Honor. Boston (etc.): Little, Brown & Co.

[18] Ladier-Fouladi, M. (1997) The Fertility Transition in Iran, Population: An English Selection 9:191-213

[19] Friedl, E. (1997) Children of Deh Koh. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press

[20] Loeb, L. D. (1977) Outcaste. London: Gordon & Breach

[21] Drew, P. E. (1997) Iran, in Francoeur, R. T. (Ed.) The International Encyclopedia of Sexuality. New York: Continuum. Quoted from the online edition

[22] Gulick, J. (1976/1983) The Middle East: An Anthropological Perspective. Pacific Palisades, Calif.: Goodyear / Lanham, MD: University Press of America. 1983, p208

[23] Guljick, J. & Guljick, M. E. (1978 [1979]) The domestic social environment of women and girls in Insfahan, Iran, in Beck, L. & Keddie, N. (Eds.) Women in the Muslim World. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, p501-21

[24] Hojat, M., Shapurian, R., Nayerahmadi, H., Farzaneh, M., Foroughi, D., Parsi, M. & Azizi, M. (1999) Premarital sexual, child rearing, and family attitudes of Iranian men and women in the United States and in Iran, J Psychol 133,1:19-31