November 18, 2016
More and more college-educated women in Iran are choosing to forego marriage because they find too few Iranian men who are willing to treat them as equals.
Educated women in Iran have generally moved into the Western norm of equality in marriage. But Iranian men tend to lag behind and still view women as a junior partner in a marriage.
Much attention has been given in Iran to what is called “white marriage,” where a couple choose to live together but not get married in a state where the wife is treated legally as very much the junior partner.
However, some women have gone further and not only do not formally marry but also do not even cohabit with men. Last week, the Los Angeles Times followed some of these women around and talked to them about their decisions.
Fahimeh Azadi told of how, in her late 20s, she chose to live alone in an apartment in work- ing-class southern Tehran. Her very presence, she recalled, was “a walking challenge to the men.”
Azadi said she had to balance independence with caution. She ascended the staircase only when it was clear of neighbors and admonished visiting friends to walk on tiptoes to avoid attracting attention.
But men in the building still wondered about the single young woman upstairs. “Is she divorced?” one asked a neighbor—the real question being: Is she available for sex?
“My guard was up,” Azadi said. “I behaved in a way that men didn’t dare poke their noses into my affairs. And I managed to live there for two years without anyone harassing me.”
Now 35, Azadi has moved to a more genteel part of town. But she still lives by herself.
The statistics show that more than 3 million educated Iranian women over 30 are unmarried, according to Mizan, the official news agency of Iran’s Judiciary. That is an astounding number—and one that directly challenges the official policy of the Supreme Leader to promote early marriage and big families. He thinks a much larger population will make Iran a more influential country.
The numbers of unmarried women are increasing as divorce becomes more common and as more women attend universities and then launch careers—with incomes that make them independent of men.
In the last nine months of 2015, the number of registered marriages nationwide dipped by 3.4 percent, while divorces rose by 4.2 percent from the previous year, the state news agency reported.
Clerics are largely displeased. They promote marriage relentlessly and often cite the prophet Mohammad, who is quoted as saying about his own marriage: “He who does not follow my tradition is not my follower.”
“Because of higher education, women have higher expectations,” Azadi told the Los Angeles Times over tea at Tehran’s aging Naderi cafe, a onetime haunt of artists and intellectuals. A university graduate working as a tour guide, she is fluent in English and Russian.
“You can’t marry a normal Iranian man who will limit you and say, ‘Don’t work; don’t go out.’ These days it is difficult to find a really open-minded Iranian man. They are lagging behind us.”
Azadi described a man she lived with for two years. He came from a well-off family and had studied in Armenia. She broke up with him last year after he refused to let her go out in the evenings alone and interrogated her after parties about men she had danced with.
Her late father, a goldsmith, and her mother supported her decision to remain single — particularly after her older sister, a successful lawyer with a 10-year-old son, divorced a husband who opposed her going on business trips.
“I have made friends on and off with men my age over the years, but none were responsible enough for me to consider marrying or having a child with,” Azadi said.
“Older men prefer women who are younger than me, and younger men just want to have sex because they think I don’t expect marriage — and because I can afford to pick up the tab at coffee shops.”
Sara Mahtabi, a 33-year-old unmarried ski instructor, fell in love in her early 20s, but her first boyfriend was unwilling to introduce her to his devout parents. A more recent relationship with a suave computer expert broke up when he told her he would only marry a virgin.
“The way he dressed was as fashionable as any European,” Mahtabi said, “but mentally he was an old-timer.”
With so much of Iranian life centered on the family, many single women admit they struggle with loneliness. Mahtabi wonders whether she should lower her standards with the next man she dates.
She said, “I feel our Iranian boys are not educated enough by our parents to tolerate living with a liberated woman, let alone enjoy it.”
Abidar Dadman, a 37-year-old bank employee studying for a master’s in international business, told the Times she recently dated a man who was uncomfortable with the fact that she earns about $300 a month more than he does.
He would bring up money at odd times, she said. Sometimes he would slip in underhanded comments, saying she must have gotten her job through family connections. Eventually, she dumped him.
“My shrink says I’m torn between my duty as a woman and living my life,” Dadman said. “I am soul-searching. We educated Iranian girls are stuck between tradition and modernity. I just want to be a decent girl who is a traditional mom and at the same time part of modern society.”
As divorces become more common, some women are picky about whether to remarry. Hajar Hasani, a 32-year-old pathologist, divorced her surgeon husband two years ago after his long work hours took a toll on their marriage. He had grown uninterested in sex, she said, although later she found suggestive texts on his phone from nurses and female co-workers.
“I’m trying to learn from my failed relationships and choose a spouse more carefully,” Hasani told the Times. She already has rejected two suitors, she said, because they seemed mainly to be after sex.
She believes that even many highly educated Iranian men continue to hold regressive views about women. “I think parents should educate their sons to take responsibility for family life and cultivate their minds — not just make them graduate from universities,” Hasani said. “Holding a Ph.D. or an M.S. or an M.A. does not make our boys mature enough.”
Marziyeh, a 33-year-old stage actress, said, “I want to start a family and have one or two children, but not at any cost.” She remains hopeful, arguing, “The quantity of educated women will change the quality of men someday. Until then, we will keep fighting with tradition.”