Word: iranian
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...when they wed, nine when the marriage was consummated. In Iran the legal age for marriage is nine for girls, 14 for boys. The law has occasionally been exploited by pedophiles, who marry poor young girls from the provinces, use and then abandon them. In 2000 the Iranian Parliament voted to raise the minimum age for girls to 14, but this year, a legislative oversight body dominated by traditional clerics vetoed the move. An attempt by conservatives to abolish Yemen's legal minimum age of 15 for girls failed, but local experts say it is rarely enforced anyway. (The onset...
Fear of poverty keeps many Muslim women locked in bad marriages, as does the prospect of losing their children. Typically, fathers win custody of boys over the age of six and girls after the onset of puberty. Maryam, an Iranian woman, says she has stayed married for 20 years to a philandering opium addict she does not love because she fears losing guardianship of her teenage daughter. "Islam supposedly gives me the right to divorce," she says. "But what about my rights afterward...
Though Iran is remembered in the West mostly for its repressive ayatullahs, women there enjoy a relatively high degree of liberty. Iranian women drive cars, buy and sell property, run their own businesses, vote and hold public office. In most Muslim countries tradition keeps ordinary women at home and off the street, but Iran's avenues are crowded with women day and night. They make up 25% of the work force, a third of all government employees and 54% of college students. Still, Iranian women are--like women in much of the Arab world--forbidden to travel overseas without...
Stability is not necessarily a virtue. But a Saudi Arabia that "convulses" in the direction of greater Islamic extremism would be terrifying. In the short term, the price of oil would surely rise, as it did after the Iranian revolution of 1979. The Saudi holy cities of Mecca and Medina are the destination for millions of Muslim pilgrims each year. They could easily become the rallying point for the sort of global jihad that could quickly turn into a clash of civilizations. For now, that is an unlikely prospect; the Saudi royal family has deep reserves of loyalty, and Abdullah...
...TEHRAN Azadeh Moaveni is TIME's indefatigable Tehran correspondent, covering a society in the throes of profound and painful changes. As a young American-educated Iranian, she has a unique perspective on the efforts of Iran's restless youth to cast off the shackles of conservative authority. Read her lively account of the quest for fun in Tehran at time.com/tehran...