Models of marriages and families are changing in Iran due to extreme poverty, unemployment and dismal economic conditions.
General Director of the Office to Prevent Social Ills announced that two temporary marriages are registered in Iran for every 10 permanent marriages.
Shirin Ahmadnia said: “Cultural and religious conditions in Iran have provided the opportunity for an increasing proportion of the populace who do not wish to have permanent marriages, to marry temporarily based on a religious contract.”
Temporary marriages allow Iranian men to marry a woman for as short as an hour. Often, men betray the contract and do not pay the dowry before abandoning the woman and if a child is born out of this temporary marriage, the single woman is left to pay the expenses in a society where she does not enjoy much economic participation (less than 2 per cent) and is practically deprived of getting jobs to earn a living.
(State-run Tabnak website – December 22, 2015)
