A comparative study of alternative entities of permanent marriage in Iranian and British laws

Sexual instinct is one of the most natural human instincts to regenerate the generation and God, while designing the religion of Islam, has prepared a comprehensive program named" marriage" to respond this natural human need. The Iranian legal system, based on Islamic regulations, introduces permanent marriage as the main solution to this problem, and in situations where it is not possible to achieve, it proposes temporary marriage and sets precise criteria for it. The British legal system was initially considered marriage as the main way to respond this need, but in recent decades, various entities- such as white marriage, common law marriage and cohabitation - have formed in Western societies and changed the initial direction of responding to this need. Due to the expansion of communication in the present era, the Iranian society is not been immune from the effects of these entities and has been faced some problems. The present article based on descriptive and analytical methods and by collecting library resources, with a comparative approach to Iranian and British law, explain the nature and characteristics of each of the alternative entities of permanent marriage in these two systems; The result shows that among the above institutions, temporary marriage has more advantages and can be a suitable alternative to permanent marriage when necessary.