Like many of its neighbours, Iran used to be a country in which folks married young. Less than 20 years ago, an Iranian bachelor or spinster in their late twenties to early thirties could expect at least a nudge in the ribs to get a move on and get hitched.
When it Makes Sense to Wait
Fast-forward to 2009 and Iranian women are attending university in record numbers. According to an interesting article in Time, written before the ‘09 election, over 60% of students on Iranian campuses are women who typically enter the workforce after graduating. This has turned their focus away from the home, made marriage less of a priority and changed women’s expectations of both marriage and prospective husbands.
It’s the same for young Iranian men who want to get their careers underway and provide for their potential wives and families. Basically, marriage is being put on hold by many young Iranians until the time is right, which translates to when they can afford it and feel they have had a little more “life experience.”
When Moving with the Times, Means Moving Away from Traditional Mores
As today’s young Iranians look towards more liberal lifestyles, they turn their backs on traditional mores of their parents’ generation which would have seen them wed as young as their late teens. So the marrying age is steadily climbing, and given as pre-marital sex is taboo, young Iranians are now taking decisions about how far they believe a courtship can go into their own hands, which appears to terrify Iran’s religious government. This became a hot topic just before the 2009 election, as the governments’ views on purity and chastity clashed with the more modern and liberal attitudes towards sexuality being expressed by the nation’s young people.
According to the article by Time, the Iranian government see this liberation as the most direct threat to the Islamic Revolution’s core values. “The sexual bomb we face is more dangerous than the bombs and missiles of the enemy,” said Mohammad Javad Hajj Ali Akbari, head of Iran’s National Youth Organization, in late 2008.
Iran’s Young People: A Powerful Chorus
Young people make up more than 35% of the Iranian population and are therefore a very loud voice. A voice, which has shouted its disapproval of the Iranian government’s strict stance in the world and the crumbling of the Iranian economy.
Unfortunately for the government, the so-called mismanagement of Iran’s economy over the past few years with its high inflation, unemployment rates and soaring real estate prices – has deepened the marriage crisis, and with it the resentment among young Iranians.
A Semi-Independent Marriage Plan
In November 2008, the Iranian government launched an anti-marriage-crisis plan, unveiled by the National Youth Organization, called “semi-independent marriage.” The plan proposed that young Iranians who could not afford to marry and move into their own place legally should marry but continue living apart in their parents’ homes.
The announcement met with a public backdraft. Online news sites ran stories in which women angrily denounced the scheme, claiming that is gave men a legal and pious route to easy sex while offering women no kind of security or social respect. The government dropped the plan like a hot potato.
Thanks to his recent election success, Ahmadinejad has extended his time as Iran’s leader, the question that remains is: will he move forward or backward in addressing the needs of his nation’s young people?
