Analysis of Mother-headed Family Issues in Ferdowsi's Shahnameh

In Firdausi’s Shahnameh there are numerous families with their siblings where in the absence of father, the mother takes the responsibility. The presence of these families regardless of their mythological, heroic, or historical backgrounds has paved the way for interdisciplinary researches to recognize and unearth their issues and predicaments.Considering the significance of this issue, the present research is an attempt to introduce "mother-headed" families in Shahnameh, and  answer the question of what issues and problems these "mother-headed" families have encountered in Shahnameh which has led to their failures relying on qualitative data analysis and frequency of historical data.The results of this study shows that the number of" mother-headed" families in Shahnameh with a frequency of %11.76 is significantly close to the report provided by the Statistics Center of Iran in 2011 of the number of "mother-headed" families  (12%). It was also found that families who were rejected or abandoned by their fathers were more affected than those who lost their fathers. Other causes of failure in the mother-headed families were identified as "the mother remarrying and having children with her second spouse,"as well as "the mother's absence from the child and her lack of support for the child."