The battle involves the very unconventional Jafari family that lives in Bristol, a city in southwest England on the Bristol channel that separates England and Wales.
The family patriarch is the self-styled Lord Houshang Jafari, once convicted of endangering the safety of an aircraft. He served more than four months in jail, after holding on to the chopper’s skid bar as it tried to take off. It was claimed the 140-kilo (310-lb) Jafari was angered when the helicopter blew debris toward his parked Land Rover.
But most recently Jafari has hit the headlines in the local Bristol Post over his contested divorce. His wife of 34 years, Aghdas Zare-Bidaki, 53, has filed for divorce on the grounds of unreasonable behavior because he is living with his 33-year-old “mistress” Katrina and their two children.
But “mistress” is a title to which Katrina herself takes great exception, the Post reports. Far from being a mistress, she considers herself, under Islamic law, to be married to Jafari – a second wife, albeit a temporary one.
Hence, she has taken the name Jafari and the ‘title’ of Lady – which she admits is simply a self-styled name to denote her “noble Persian background.”
For the past five years, Jafari has been living with Katrina and their two young children at Dower House, in which the businessman owns two apartments. It is a few miles from the equally grand Hamilton House where he also has living quarters, alongside his first wife.
Jafari says he searched out his second wife after being advised to do so by his late father, known as Papa Haji.
Concerned that his son seemed unhappy with his current married life, but conscious of the social stigma of divorce at their level of Iranian society, Papa Haji advised finding a second wife, under the Persian system of sigheh or temporary marriage.
The two women never actually met until Aghdas filed for divorce, and the two women’s eyes met across the courtroom.
“It’s not like Mormons living with a couple of wives under the same roof,” Katrina told the Post.
“We lived totally separate lives, and Houshang, who has always treated his first wife with great respect, simply had living quarters at Hamilton House and here at the Dower House.”
Katrina explains her understanding of the system of marriage in Iranian culture. “It’s nothing to do with love,” she says. “The marriage is arranged by both families in order to ensure the continued nobility and wealth of both families. The women are in a stronger position than British women, because they are paid a kind of dowry – a mehr – which, if the husband later chooses to divorce her, she is able to keep. It’s a kind of safety net.
“In the case of Houshang and Aghdas’ marriage, the mehr provided to Aghdas in 1978 included the equivalent of a quarter of a million pounds [$400,000] in gold coins. This is hers alone, and is kept by her if her husband divorces her. But if she seeks divorce from Sharia Council, simply on the basis she is unhappy with her husband, she has to return the dowry.
“As she married Houshang in Iran, under Sharia Law, I believe she did so knowing that polygamy was something that was clearly open to Houshang in the future – he could later take further wives. That was an inherent part of the deal.”
This, it seems, is the crux of why Jafari is contesting the divorce.
Katrina – herself a successful businesswoman, who before her “marriage” ran a global distribution company with offices in Paris and Rome – says she is supporting her husband emotionally, morally and practically. She is keen to point out that she is paying his court fees, as well as covering the mortgage costs on the Dower House, and providing the food for Houshang and Katrina’s two young children
Houshang, a property developer, lost his own personal wealth in the crash of 2008.
“Far from being a greedy young woman living on the wealth of a rich old man, it is actually me supporting Houshang financially, because I know he is a good, honorable and noble man,” Katrina says.
“That’s why I take great exception to being called a mistress – it implies that I am with him for financial gain, as well as failing to recognize the marriage we have under our own culture – albeit different from any British concept of marriage; a temporary marriage, continued through mutual agreement without ever having had a wedding ceremony, or having signed a marriage certificate.
“Papa Haji did not take his decision lightly when he advised his son to take a second wife,” she says. “Islam imposes a very strict set of rules on polygamy. A man cannot just add women to his portfolio. Polygamy is a very serious legal obligation for an Iranian man.”
Katrina said, “The issue is to do with the clash of cultures – the complex problems that arise in cases where a couple are married in an Islamic country, under Islamic laws and traditions, but then find themselves going through a divorce in Britain, under Western conditions.
“As British law is essentially based on the teachings of the Holy Bible, while Islamic law is essentially based on the teachings of the Holy Qoran, you have a situation where people are married under the Qoran and divorced under the Bible.
“It’s simply not right – Muslims in this country, who married in an Islamic country, should have to go back to that country in order to get divorced using the system they were married under, otherwise it is simply unfair.
“The law allows polygamy in this country in situations where marriages took place abroad, whereas polygamy that takes place here is of course considered to be a criminal offence – bigamy. So if the law can be sophisticated enough to make that original distinction, it should be capable of using the same logic when it comes to divorce.”
P.S. US law makes very clear that no one may have more than one wife in the United States. If one is married to more than two women abroad, only the first is recognized as a wife under US law, And no second wife may be taken under any circumstances. Marriages can only be contracted in the United States in compliance with the laws of the state in which a couple become married.
