{"id":5709,"date":"2016-02-17T11:20:17","date_gmt":"2016-02-17T16:20:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/?p=5709"},"modified":"2016-02-17T11:20:17","modified_gmt":"2016-02-17T16:20:17","slug":"iranian-cohabitation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/2016\/02\/17\/iranian-cohabitation\/","title":{"rendered":"A Potential Dark Side to Iran\u2019s \u201cWhite Marriages\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A<\/a>
A couple in Tehran. Photo by Kamyar Adl, Flickr CC.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Some Iranian officials are increasingly worried about what they call \u201cwhite marriage\u201d or sometimes \u201cblack coupling.\u201d These terms refer to cohabitation between unmarried men and women. Officials deem the trend \u201cworrisome\u201d and \u201ca serious blow to the family,\u201d and some insinuate that women who cohabitate will become prostitutes when they are no longer viewed as beautiful by their partners. The Iranian news outlet <\/span>Payvand<\/span><\/i><\/a> recently <\/span>featured<\/span><\/a> a sociologist who spoke anonymously to the International Campaign for Human Rights about why cohabitation, despite the disparagement, seems to be on the rise.<\/span><\/p>\n

One reason to engage in \u201cwhite marriage\u201d is that it allows couples to avoid the bureaucracy and gender inequalities that come with legal marriage in Iran. The sociologist notes that marriage contracts overwhelmingly favor men. For instance, men can control their wives\u2019 travel, decide where the couple lives, and have more rights in divorce. <\/span><\/p>\n

An earlier <\/span>BBC<\/span><\/a> article noted that cohabitation is also a result of the loosening of some traditional morals in Iranian society:<\/span><\/p>\n

“Of course cohabitation is not accepted by the more religious parts of society,” says sociologist Mehrdad Darvishpour, who is now based in Sweden. “But just like in the rest of the world, the middle class in Iran is starting to prefer this type of life to traditional marriage. Sex before marriage isn’t taboo anymore.”<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

While it seems progressive, however, the unnamed sociologist in <\/span>Payvand <\/span><\/i>also highlighted potential negative consequences for a woman in a \u201cwhite marriage\u201d:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf a woman is attacked by her male partner, she would have no legal protection,\u201d the sociologist told the Campaign. \u201cInstead she would be asked by the police and judicial authorities about her marital status and if she is not legally married, she will be in a lot of trouble.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Since most cohabitation is\u00a0hidden from the woman\u2019s parents, she may lose the support of her family should she experience and try to escape emotional or physical abuse. Couples also risk accusations of adultery—an offense punishable by death—since Iranian Sharia Law requires all marital unions be registered.
\n<\/span>
\nFor more on cohabitation in the U.S., check out this <\/span>post <\/span><\/a>from the Council on Contemporary Families. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some Iranian officials are increasingly worried about what they call \u201cwhite marriage\u201d or sometimes \u201cblack coupling.\u201d These terms refer to cohabitation between unmarried men and women. Officials deem the trend \u201cworrisome\u201d and \u201ca serious blow to the family,\u201d and some insinuate that women who cohabitate will become prostitutes when they are no longer viewed as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2020,"featured_media":5710,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[124,15,55],"tags":[13248,39116,39112,70,39114,556,320],"class_list":["post-5709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crime","category-culture","category-gender","tag-cohabitation","tag-crime","tag-culture","tag-family","tag-gender","tag-iran","tag-marriage"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/files\/2016\/02\/3786358646_42ed16afaa_z-e1455725959648.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2020"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5709"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5713,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5709\/revisions\/5713"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}