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The marriage between Fatemah al-Zahra, Prophet Muhammad’s daughter, and Imam Ali, Shiite Islam’s highly esteemed figure, 1,400 years ago continues to be acknowledged in Iran during Marriage Day, an annual commemorative day that reminds its people the value of marriage and raising a family.
However, Iran officials felt the need to change the name from Marriage Day to No Divorce Day, in which the justice minister of Iran will refuse the issuance of divorce permits. This significant change serves as a response to the alarmingly increase rates of divorce in Iran as of late.
According to an article from the New York Times, the Iranian government has reported that there is a divorce for every seven marriages; Tehran, capital of Iran, reports a divorce for every 3.67 marriages. In general, the past decade saw a threefold increase in the divorce rate in Iran – from 50,000 in 2000 to 150,000 in 2010.
Although Iran and its divorce numbers are still far off compared to the United States, the alarming growth of its divorce rate does not seem to show any signs of slowing down anytime soon. In reference to the Iranian calendar, which ends every March, divorce was up by 16 percent as opposed to the 1 percent growth in marriages. Also, most of the divorces filed occur in central Tehran and not in the Westernized parts of the city, located in the north.
One of the primary reasons that explain the ascension of divorce in this once conservative Islamic culture is the growing eagerness of Iranian women to take the legal system into their own hands in order to get away from undesirable marriages. This behavior from Iranian women is predicated by the uneven playing field provided by the divorce laws in Iran – the husbands are highly favored as they have the power to end their marriages within weeks without stating any logical explanation, whereas wives are required to provide grounds for divorce that could take years to be approved.
Despite their unequal divorce rights, Iranian wives have used a mehrier, a single payment agreed upon by the husband to the wives prior to marriage, as leverage during the divorce process. Normally, husbands are obliged to pay the mehrier to their wives after the divorce is done. However, the value of mehrier has increased throughout the years, amounting to tens and thousands of dollars. This has forced some husbands to pursue a “divorce of mutual consent,” which will enable him to either pay only part of the mehrier or completely forego it.
There have been conscious efforts by government officials to lessen the value of the mehrier in order to discourage Iranian women from getting their divorces. In fact, constant talks of putting a cap on the mehrier or by having a symbolic mehrier instead, such as a Koran or a bag of gold coin to be handed to the wife after divorce, have been discussed by conservatives and Clerics.
However, the rising divorce rate in Iran is simply an indication of the cultural and social changes that the country is currently experiencing, and that these changes are here to stay.
Related News: Most Recent Divorce Rates By Country
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