نشریه مطالعات اسلامی زنان و خانواده
سال هشتم شماره 1 (پیاپی 14، بهار و تابستان 1400)

Although the theory of civil law and the generally accepted view among jurisprudents is the exclusivity of the defects leading to termination of marriage. Today, however, with the advent of new diseases, many of the contemporary jurisprudents believe in the allegoricalness of defects, especially given that the basis for termination of marriage in the defects specified by law is the negation of harm, and this criterion exists in emerging diseases a fortiori, since many of these diseases are pernicious, contagious and refractory, and tolerating such conditions by a healthy person, in addition to causing harm, is associated with great affliction. Yet, notwithstanding the fact that some of the defects regarded in the civil law as causes for termination of marriage can be treated today with scientific and medical advances, some jurists and jurisprudents still adhere to termination of marriage. In this descriptive-analytical article, through the comparison of priority, which is accepted by all jurisprudents, it was concluded that in the new defects that have appeared today, such as AIDS, hepatitis, SARS, syphilis, etc., which are far more perilous and refractory than the defects specified in the civil law, and for which no definitive treatments have been found so far, we must abide by termination of marriage in order to prevent harm to the spouse.

Demanding dowry by the wife and the husband’s inability or insolvency to pay it is among the most frequent lawsuits in family courts. In such lawsuits, the wife refuses to perform marital duties in order to enforce the dowry, and even proving the husband’s insolvency does not invalidate her right. Such lawsuits undermine the foundation of the family, and the solution lies in the accountability of the state (government). State’s financial support for debtors is a religious obligation in Islamic jurisprudence. According to the Holy Qur’an and authentic narratives, the state should assist eligible debtors and help them with money from the treasury. The application of the reasons for the necessity of paying off debtors’ debts also includes dowry debtors, and there is no valid reason for excluding dowry from this general principle. Besides, the principle of family strength in the Islamic and Iranian legal systems requires that dowry debtors be supported. Despite the significance of this issue, in the Iranian legal system, no efficacious protection mechanism has been devised to support those who are unable to pay the dowry. The investigations of this study indicates that in the Iranian legal system, the religious responsibility of the state in supporting dowry debtors has been neglected.

Divorce rates have risen considerably in recent years. The present article, based on the achievements of the researches conducted during the last decade, seeks to find the most important factors affecting divorce in Iran. The type of the study is a systematic review of the studies recorded during the last decade (from 1390 to 1398) on the causes and factors of divorce. For this purpose, a search was carried out in databases including the Scientific Information Database of Jahad Daneshgahi (SID), Noor Specialized Magazines Website (Noormags), the Database of the Iranian Press (MagIran), and the Comprehensive Humanities Portal (Ensani), with the keywords, causes and factors of divorce, which resulted in 90 articles. Excluding duplicate and less relevant articles over that certain period of time, 41 articles were eligible to be included in this study. The findings revealed that individual (personal, personality, demographic and physical) factors and socio-cultural, economic, legal and situational factors play roles in divorce. Moreover, attention to internal preparations and cultural and social changes on a large scale has become a further cause of divorce and led to a growing increase in it. In addition, culture and the personal and personality factors originated from culture may be regarded as a predisposing factor, at the top of the factors causing divorce. Based on the obtained results, the underlying factors (culture and the personal and personality factors derived from culture) are among the most significant factors that can be modified to reduce the growth rate of divorce and raise the hope for stability and constancy in married life. Such factors as the improper intracouple relationship and the economy are of the revealing type, and finally, the laws and situational factors are considered to be perpetuating it, which are effective in leading the couple to divorce.

There has long been a dispute between jurisprudents and scholars as to whether a wife is entitled to the right of lien in the marriage contract or maintaining it lacks Sharia basis or scientific acceptability. The reason for the discord among the scholars is the resemblance of some of the rules of marriage to those of exchange. Thus, a great number of jurisprudents have considered the marriage contract an exchange or as an exchange and have compared dowry and woman’s body with objects of exchange in a sale contract. Finding a solution to this deep-rooted discord may be the key to resolving part of the couples’ current dissensions. The result of the research indicates that the right of lien in the marriage contract, unlike the right of lien in transactions, has no acceptable Sharia backing and is repugnant to consolidating the foundations of family and the stability of family relations. The consensus of jurisprudents in different eras, due to the existence of narrative documentations, has been a document-based consensus and is not established. The present research has been conducted implementing a descriptive-analytical method with reference to library resources.

In the modern world, various movements under the name of women and for women are active all around the world, which have motivated international institutions and intellectuals to support and rebuild women’s status in social life. The output and product of these movements are international documents and commitments on women that have imposed requirements on governments and nations. One of the most crucial of these documents is the “Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women”, the evaluation and rethinking of which is of fundamental and strategic significance and places a responsibility on individuals and institutions. Therefore, focusing on prohibitions and sanctions is not a way forward and it is essential to provide alternative solutions and models in this regard. The present research, using the descriptive-analytical method, has provided a sociological explication of the reasons for the Islamic Republic of Iran’s forbearance and refusal to accept the provisions of the Women’ s Convention. According to the results of the research, considering that the laws and regulations of each country are the manifestation and application of the fundamentals and principles governing that society and that the intellectual fundamentals governing Western countries and international organizations are based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the full similarity and equality between men and women’s rights, the introduction and provisions of the Women’s Convention are also founded upon this attitude and remarkably different from the intellectual fundamentals and principles governing Islamic countries. Furthermore, the indicators of women’s development in various areas, such as educational, instructional, economic, and social ones reveal that the Islamic Republic of Iran has achieved a local model without the need for Western development indicators for women’s advancement in various fields.

Divorce is a phenomenon that affects divorced women’s peace of mind and can cause severe psychological damages. The aim of the present research is to determine the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral therapy on stigma, symptoms of social phobia and fear of intimacy in divorced women in the city of Shahrekord. This study is of the experimental type with a pre-test, post-test, follow-up design and a control group. Its population consists of divorced women who went to counseling centers in Shahrekord during the three months of winter in the year 1398 and had a record there. From among these individuals, 30 were selected through purposive sampling method and were randomly placed into experimental and control groups (15 individuals each). In this research, the Stigma Questionnaire (Mirzaei et al., 1398), Social Phobia Inventory (Connor et al., 2000), and Fear of Intimacy Scale (Descutner & Thelen, 1991) were implemented in the three stages of pre-test, post-test and follow-up. The data were analyzed using repeated measures analysis. The findings indicated that cognitivebehavioral group therapy is effective on reducing stigma (f = 27.45 p <0.001), reducing symptoms of social phobia (f = 4.25 p <0.001), and reducing fear of intimacy (f = 14.422 p <0.001) in divorced women. According to the obtained results, it can be concluded that cognitive-behavioral intervention is one of the effective methods in improving divorced women’s psychological characteristics.