the rape of a wife cannot be considered as an
assault! Thereafter, punishing her becomes a right
for men” (Ardalan and Khaksar 1994). Even in the
realm of crime the supremacy of men is blatant.
According to Islamic criminal law (qißàß), a
woman’s life is equal to half that of a man, a situa-
tion that often results in the male escaping punish-
ment after committing a crime.
Although the Iranian government joined the UN
Convention on Children’s Rights in 1993 and the
parliament adopted a resolution proposed by activ-
ist women (September 2000) to raise the legal
maturity age from 9 to 15 for girls and from 15 to
17 for boys, the problem remains unsolved. The
Guardian Council rejected the resolution on grounds
of incompatibility with Islamic law (Kian 2002).
Nevertheless, bargains are being made, but the sit-
uation remains inconclusive. Young children can be
married off as long as the father, grandfather, or
guardian allow it (Kar 2000). The child must obey
and respect his parents (article 1177) and parents
have the right to punish and beat him if necessary
(article 1179). Qißàßthus gives the father the right
to treat the child the way he deems fitting, even as
far as killing the child; if a father kills his child, the
act is not punishable by law (article 220) (Ebadi
1999). Given the legal abuses, it becomes difficult
to define violence and punishment in such cultures.Women
According to the content analysis of a Persian
daily newspaper (îràn) during 1995 (Nassehi-Beh-
nam 1999, 135), women were the usual victims of
violence in the home and men the habitual perpe-
trators (85 percent men, 15 percent women). In
most of the cases men acted violently toward women
whereas women’s aggressiveness was self-inflicted
(attempted or successful suicide). Forty percent of
reported domestic violence incidents resulted in the
death of the victim, 2.5 percent in suicide, 3.5 in
attempted homicide, and the rest in disputes and
assaults that were taken to court.
Victims of male aggression are mostly wives,
children, wife’s parents, and siblings. Men often
consider their parents-in-law responsible for their
wife’s behavior. Female violence is scarce and often
involves threatening men (suicide attempt and self-
burning) rather than injuring another person. But
among women who attempted self-burning many
have lost their lives (Moghissi 1994). Two cases of
female homicides (a co-wife and the child of a co-
wife) show, contrary to what some Muslims pre-
tend, how intolerable a polygamous marriage may
become to the first wife.
A documented study of violence (Kàr 2001) con-118 domestic violence
cludes that violence against women is a partially
hidden phenomenon because Iranian women have
traditionally learned to tolerate and accept male
violence and avoid reporting incidents of abuse.
Legal organizations do not help the dissemination
of data concerning domestic violence. That is the
reason why statistics do not reflect the gravity of the
situation of women’s lives. Kàr mentions the nega-
tive consequences of divorce in Persian culture,
such as gender inequality in child custody and the
lack of safeguards (economic and effective) for
divorcees, as the main reasons for such subordina-
tion. A survey on divorcees in Tehran confirms the
absence of any protection systems for these women,
who are considered deviants in traditional societies
(Nassehi 1980).
A survey of battered women in Tehran (E±zazi
2001) reveals that in 53 percent of the cases, vio-
lence against women is practiced at home and the
rest in public places. A considerable number of the
women interviewed did not know why they were
beaten. Among respondents only 7 percent reacted
to light physical attacks. Most women said they
tolerated their husbands’ violence to avoid being
divorced, since they thought their husband’s ag-
gression was to make them ask for a divorce with-
out the benefit of their bride-price (mahr). Others
accept men’s brutality as part of normal male
behavior. Sixty-three percent were forced into mar-
riage or went through arranged marriages. A con-
siderable number of marriages were heterogamous.
The reasons battered women gave for domestic vio-
lence are: jealousy, family disputes resulting from
interference by in-laws or visits of wife’s family
members, financial problems, and alcohol or drug
addiction.
Statistics from a report on people who consulted
the Iranian Legal Medical Office during a period of
30 months (Kohani 2001), indicate that among ap-
proximately 2.5 million plaintiffs, more than half
reported quarrels, and 24.5 percent of these were
battered women. Of this number, 9 percent wanted
to officially record their complaints for future deci-
sions (osr va haraj), 31 percent to obtain a divorce,
and 60 percent just to scare their aggressors and
prevent future attacks.
An RDS report (2000) on the situation of
Afghani women says: “the Human Rights situation
for women was extremely poor... As lawless
fighting continued in some areas, violence against
women occurred frequently, including beatings,
rapes, forced marriages, disappearances, kidnap-
pings and killings. Such incidents generally went
unreported, and most information was anecdo-
tal...Prostitution and beggary are the only op-