The Condition of Deputation in Divorce and its Position in the Familial Rights: its Ethical, Cultural and Economical Consequences

The main purpose of the present research is to study a term or condition within the marriage contract that gives women the agency of divorce and its place in the family’s legal system and its moral, cultural and economic consequences. Concerning the empowerment of a wife to divorce herself, there are three perceptions in Shi’a jurisprudence: permission, impermissibility and suspension. Famous jurisprudents had permitted the empowerment of the wife, and some contemporary jurisprudents have also been coordinated with this famous comment. There are some different opinions regarding the presence or absence of the husband at the place of the divorce, and some jurists have not accepted such an agency at the presence of the husband in the place, but the famous jurists didn’t mention the condition of his presence or absence and verified the accuracy of it. The Civil law of the Islamic Republic of Iran, in Article 1138, also affirms the empowerment of divorce without specifying any condition, however, in Article 1119, where the lawgiver indicates examples for the terms of the marriage contract, it links the empowerment of a wife to divorce herself to some conditions and do not speak of absolute and unconditional agency, and further it places the room for other conditions as well. To investigate the causes and consequences of obtaining the condition of agency with a qualitative approach and a semi-structured interview technique and analyzing data, the researcher has examined the views of many experts in a thematic way. Woman’s agency for divorce, affects all aspects of the family’s life, while it can be considered as positive or negative. Gaining such a condition has some legal, cultural, and social reasons from the viewpoint of the interviewees. There are ethical, cultural and economic consequences for obtaining the condition proportional to the gender and the whole family. Although obtaining such a condition could have some advantages such as preventing the oppression of some men, its disadvantages are such that the family life faces serious challenges so it becomes weak and unstable.