November 01-2013
Don’t expect to see much of Iran’s first lady. She is even more hidden than the wife of Mahmud Ahmadi-nejad.
Sahebeh Rohani — who entered an arranged marriage at the age of 14 —has been little seen throughout her husband’s political career.
The wives of several candidates in the June presidnetial elections traveled with their husbands and made public appearances. But Sahebeh didn’t campaign with her husband and has only rarely and fleetingly been seen in public.
In the ultimate dismissal, she isn’t even mentioned in her husband’s official biography.
Virtually all that has been publicly revealed about Mrs. Rohani is that she is a housewife and bore him five children, including a son who has died.
All Hassan Rohani, 64, is known to have said publicly about his wife is that his family chose her for him.
“I was about 20 years old. My father insisted, my mother as well,” he told the Iranian Students’ News Agency during the campaign. “I wasn’t very reluctant,” Rohani said mysteriously.
On June 19, an Iranian website quoted Rohani’s 86-year-old mother as saying Rohani’s wife was 14 years old when they married, the legal age of consent in Iran. That would make her 58 today.
It’s an anonymity that is remarkable even by Iranian standards, says Radio Farda’s Golnaz Esfandiari, who has been trying to gather information on the mysterious First Lady
Even Rohani’s predecessor, Mahmud Ahmadi-nejad, trotted out his better half, Azam Farahi, on occasion. She frequently traveled abroad with him on state visits. And she made a few speeches in Tehran as the presidential spouse.
