BEIRUT // Weddings in Iran have long been an over-the-top affair with families spending thousands of dollars to celebrate a union.
But now some couples are splurging on an entirely different sort of nuptial celebration — a divorce party.
Local media outlets have been abuzz for months about lavish parties, complete with sarcastic invitations and humorous cakes, for couples splitting up.
The phenomenon has become so widespread that one prominent cleric said couples who throw these parties are “satanic”.
Still, the divorce parties are a sign of an undeniable trend: a soaring divorce rate in Iran.
Since 2006, the rate of divorce has increased to the point where around 20 per cent of marriages now end in divorce.
In the two months from March to May, more than 21,000 divorce cases were logged, according to official statistics.
The rise in the number of couples choosing to split up has angered conservatives in Iran who see the increase in divorce as an affront to the values of the Islamic Republic.
Last month, Mustafa Pour Mohammadi, the current justice minister who is also a cleric, said that having 14 million divorce cases within the judiciary is “not befitting of an Islamic system”.
Some reasons for divorce in Iran include economic problems, adultery, drug addiction or physical abuse. But the increase in the divorce rate points to a more fundamental shift in Iranian society.
“There has been a big growth in individualism in Iran, especially among women. Women are more educated and have increased financial empowerment,” said Hamid Reza Jalaipour, a sociologist at Tehran University.
“It used to be that a woman would marry and she would just have to get along. Now if she’s not happy, she’ll separate. It’s not taboo,” he said.
A 41-year-old mother with a teenage daughter, who is also the head of public relations at a Tehran factory, said she divorced her husband because he was an abusive drug addict.
It took four years to deal with the government bureaucracy. “They don’t like divorce to come from the side of women,” she said. But in the year since the divorce “I’ve been in heaven”.
While she was married, an aunt had told her not to wash the dishes at a certain time in case it gave her husband a headache.
“I said to hell with the headache, why doesn’t he get up and do the dishes himself?”
She had never been to one of Tehran’s notorious divorce parties, but said: “The day that I got my divorce finalised I invited some friends over to celebrate too.”
The marriage law in Iran traditionally favours the husband, who has the right to ask for a divorce. In the cases where the husband is unwilling to divorce, the wife must legally prove that the husband is abusive, has psychological problems or is unable to uphold his marriage responsibilities to separate.
“In the past two years the issue of divorce in Iran has reached unprecedented levels,” said Mohsen Mohammadi, from the Yasa law group in Tehran.
“We didn’t even have an interest in family and divorce law. But because of the large number of requests it made sense for us to get into this. The legal side of family and divorce has become a big business in Iran.”
More women being educated and joining the workforce have contributed to the rising divorce rate, and experts say it does not appear like this trend is going to change.
For the current school year, 60 per cent of enrolled university students are female.
When these women graduate, their first priority may not be to get married because they can now find jobs. If they do get married, it will now be easier for them to leave a troubled marriage or to support themselves financially, experts say.
This is not only a trend among the top-tier of Iranian society.
“We’re not talking about a middle class anymore or the northern Tehran elite. This is not the upper crust becomes Western and gets divorced,” said Kevan Harris, a sociologist at Princeton University’s Centre for Iran and Gulf Studies.
“This is because of internal change in society. If this were just happening in the upper crust you wouldn’t see these kinds of numbers.”
The rise in the divorce rate is a worrying trend for the government as it sees a plunging birth rate.
Last year, parliament’s social affairs committee proposed that $1.1 billion (Dh4bn) be dedicated to facilitating marriages but the motion was not passed.
A more controversial proposal has been to create a ministry of marriage and divorce — but some officials have criticised it saying it would create more bureaucracy rather than address the issue of rising divorce.
Whatever the government does, it will be hard to change a new tolerance for divorce.
* Reuters
