Chapter 9
Women and politics in post-Khomeini Iran
Divorce, veiling and emerging feminist voices
Ziba Mir-Hosseini
In September 1993, a lawyer friend in Tehran arranged for me to meet the new president of the Special Civil Courts. These arc the post-revolutionary family courts which I studied between 1985 and 1988, when they were located in an old building near the Bazaar. They had recently moved to a modern building in affluent north Tehran. My friend could not remember the name of the street, but told mc, 'Come to Vanak Square, you'll find it: the entrance will be packed with women waiting for the door to open at 8.30.' Near Vanak Square, I saw a women in a chador, carrying freshly baked bread, one of those so-called 'traditional Iranian women*. I asked her for directions to the courts. She looked at me in horror, and said 'Oh no! why you?' Feeling defensive and somehow ashamed, I explained in an apologetic tone that I was just meeting a lawyer friend who would introduce mc to the new court president. Disbelief showing on her face, she told me to come with her, as she lived in a nearby street. Taken aback by my own reaction, as we walked together, I tried to make a case for divorce, for women such as those whose court cases I had studied, women who shared my view that divorce is a lesser evil than staying in an unhappy and unfair marriage. My guide disagreed: 'What makes you think you'll find fairness in another marriage; divorce doesn't change anything, the next husband will be just as bad as the first one; it is up to a woman to make the best of her life.1 I protested that there were surely standards and limits: 'What if he takes another wife?' I knew from my court attendance that this is where most women, and even judges, draw the line. She paused and said, Too bad; but if she leaves, the children will turn against her; if she stays, she will keep them for ever; they matter to a woman more than a husband.'
This encounter seems to me to reveal the basic similarities and differences between two major discourses on women in Iran today. My reactions were typical of the 'modernist' position - which has been discussed extensively in the growing literature on Iranian women; my guide's position, on the other hand, although that of perhaps the majority oľ Iranian women, has received little attention, and is littíe understood outside Iran. I begin with this encounter not only because it indicates what marriage, as defined and regulated by the
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Shari'a, can entail for women in Iran, but also because it tells something of the ways in which women relate to and deal with its patriarchal rules. It is against the background of the opposed discourses implicit in the encounter that I examine in this chapter the working of the Shari'a as it concerns women in Iran today - where one version of the Islamist vision has been realised.
One unprcdicted outcome of the Islamic revolution in Iran has been to raise the nation's gender consciousness. Since the revolution, whatever concerns women - from their most private to their most public activities, from what they should wear and what they should study to whether and where they should work - are issues that have been openly debated and fought over by different factions, always in highly charged and emotional language. The result has been a breakdown of all kinds of easy dichotomies, including that of public versus private. Consciously or not, everyone has been drawn into these debates and somehow forced to take a position. It is almost impossible not to, if you happen to be an Iranian woman, whether living inside or outside the boundaries of the Islamic Republic.
There is now a substantial literature on women in post-revolutionary Iran, largely produced by Iranian women educated in the West and living in exile.1 Most of them, especially those writing in the 1980s, see the impact of the revolution as having been detrimental to women. Basing their case on the changes brought about in the law to ensure the rule of the Shari'a and on the restrictions imposed by compulsory veiling, they argue that women lost many rights they had before the revolution. More recent writers, especially since 1990, are less polemical and more willing to explore the complexity of the situation. Yet there has been little examination of the processes through which the changes in law have been implemented in practice, and the paradoxical ways in which the whole process has come to empower women.
To explore the actual field of operation of the Shari'a, I shall examine two of its features in todays Iran, namely divorce law and dress codes: not only-are they among the most visible and debated Islamic mandates, but also they are the yardsticks by which women's emancipation or repression in Islam are measured. Both have been the subject of intense debates in Iran since the turn of the century; and in both areas the legislations of both the former and present regimes have aroused deep emotions and diverse reactions. However. as we shall see, whereas on divorce laws the Islamic Republic has gradually retreated from its early position and suppressed debates have now fully rc-emcrged, the same has not happened with the issue of dress.
I argue that, contrary to what the early literature contends, and what remains implicit in the later wave, the impact of the revolution on women has been emancipatory, in the sense that it has paved the way for the emergence of a popular feminist consciousness.1' By feminism, here I mean a broad concern with women's issues and an awareness of their oppression at work, in the home and in society, as well as action aimed at improving their lives and changing the situation (Moore  1988:  10).3 Such a consciousness, most
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active in the private domain of the family, is now extending lo the public domain. What facilitates such extension is the widening gap between the ideals and realities of the Shari'a as defined and enforced by a modern slate.
DIVORCE LAWS: A CHANGE OF HEART
In December 1992, the Majlis (Iranian parliament) ratified a law which represents a radical interpretation of Shan'a divorce provisions. EntiUed Amendments to Divorce Regulations', this law outlaws the registration of a divorce without a court certificate, and allows the appointment of women as advisory judges to work in co-operation with the main judge. Above all it enables the court to place a monetary value on women's housework, and to force the husband to pay her igrat al-mühl (literally, wages in kind) for the work she has done during marriage, provided that divorce is not initiated by her or is not caused by any fault of hers. The amendments further require every divorcing couple to go through a process of arbitration. If the arbiters, one chosen by each side, fail to reconcile the couple, the court allows a man to effect a divorce - which has to be of ng'i type1 only after he has paid his wife all her dues: dower {mahr), waiting period ('idda) maintenance and ujral al-mithl (domestic wages). The registration of a ruj'i divorce is also made contingent upon the production of another certificate confirming that the wife spent her 'idda period (three menstrual cycles, or until delivery if she is pregnant) in the marital home and was provided for by the husband.
By introducing the concept of domestic wages and substantially restricting men's right to repudiation {lalaq), the 1992 amendments not only break new ground in Shari'a divorce provisions bui also amount to a complete reversal of an early ruling of the Revolutionary Council dismantling the Family Protection Law of 1967, which had introduced substantial reforms in Shan'a divorce provisions.
Belbre discussing how and why such a reversal came about, a brief note is needed on the history of the Family Protection Law (FPL) and how it was dismantled. There is a tendency to take the Shari'a-based rulings in Iran at face value and to overlook both the processes involved and the extent to which they arc translated into practice.5 As we shall see, although the FPL itself was denounced in rhetoric, after the revolution a large portion of its reforms was retained in practice.
The FPL, enacted in 1967 and amended in 1975, received international acclaim and was even described as the most radical reform in Shari'a laws of divorce (Bagley I971; Hinchcliffe 1968). It was part of a scries of legal reforms begun earlier in the twentieth century aimed at creation of a totally secular judicial system. The most radical step was in 1936 during the reign of Reza Shah, when all serving judges in the newly created Ministry of Justice were required to hold a degree from cither Tehran Faculty of Law or a foreign university. The result was that, almost overnight, the remaining Shari'a judges
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lost their positions. In the same year, the Majlis approved the final draft of the new Civil Code, based on Western judiciary models, namely, those of France and Belgium. Meanwhile, the Marriage Law of 193I had made marriage subject to slate provisions by requiring the registration of all marriages and divorces and denying legal recognition unless they were registered in civil bureaux. Otherwise in matters relating to marriage, family and inheritance, die Civil Code still deferred to the Shari'a; the only departure was those articles prohibiting marriage of girls under 13 (Banani 1961: 73-1).
In 1967 substantial reforms in the Shari'a provisions were attempted. This was done through a legislation entitled Family Protection Law, which restricted men's rights to divorce and polygamy, and more importandy gave women easier access to divorce. The reforms were achieved through procedural devices, that is by simply changing the regulations for registration of marriage and divorce, and leaving intact the provisions of the Shari'a as reflected in the Civil Code. New courts, headed by civil judges (some of them women), were established to deal with the whole range of marital disputes. The registration of divorce and polygamous marriage without a certificate issued by these courts became an offence, subject to a penalty of six months' to one year's imprisonment for all parties involved, including the registrar.'1 In 1975 a new version of FPL, which formally repealed all laws contrary to its mandate, in effect provided these courts with discretionary power to disregard all the provisions of the Civil Code on divorce and child custody with impunity.
In February 1979, soon after the victory of the revolution, a communique from the office of Ayatollah Khomeini declared the FPL to be non-Islamic, and demanded its suspension and the reinstitution of the Shari'a.7 There followed a period of uncertainty during which FPL courts continued to function, until September 1979, when they were replaced by Special Civil Courts {dadgahha-ye madani-ye khass). Established by a legislation with the same name, the new courts are in effect Shari'a courts and they are presided over by a hakem-e shar (a judge trained in ßgh, Islamic jurisprudence). 'Special' here denotes the freedom of these courts from the law of evidence and procedure contained in the Civil Procedure Code, investing them with the same degree of discretionary powers as the pre-revolutionary FPL courts.
The point that needs to be made is that in 1979 the return to the Shari'a was achieved exacdy in the same way as it had been abandoned in 1967, that is by manipulating the procedural rules. In this way, neither the Pahlavi regime nor the Islamic Republic had to address the theory of the Sluxri'a, while both were able lo achieve their objectives through changing its practice. Legally speaking, like the Civil Code articles on marriage and divorce under the Pahlavis, FPL was never formally repealed by the Islamic Republic. Some of its procedural rules continued to govern the registration of marriages and divorces, although to different degrees. For instance, in theory registering a polygamous marriage without a court order is still an offence, but in practice the penalty for doing so has been removed: in August 1984 a ruling of the


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Council of Experts declared this penalty anú-Stum'a. Now it is left to the conscience and outlook of the marriage registrars whether or not they require a court order to register a polygamous marriage.
The same has not happened with respect to the registration of divorces, where only two changes were effected. First, whereas between 1967 and 1979 no divorce could be registered without first producing a Certificate of Impossibility of Reconciliation, issued by the FPL courts, between September 1979 and December 1992 a divorce could be registered if both parties reached a mutual agreement. The only cases that needed to appear in court were those where one party, either the husband or the wife, objected to the divorce or its terms. Second, in conformity with the Shari'a mandate of divorce, whereas men are not required to provide a ground, women can obtain a divorce only upon establishing one of the recognised grounds, which are basically the same as those available to them under the FPL. These grounds are much broader than those recognised by classical Shi'a law, which arc only two: the husband's impotency and his insanity. Using the legal device of tatfiq, that is adopting provisions from other schools of the Shari'a, the 1936 Civil Code had made three other divorce grounds available to women: husband's failure to maintain his wife, his failure to perform marital duties (sexual), his affliction by a disease endangering her life, and his maltreatment of her to the extent that continuation of marriage is deemed to cause her harm. To further broaden these grounds and yet not to break with the Shari'a provisions for divorce, the 1967 FPL resorted to another legal device, which could in theory put women on the same footing as men in terms of access to divorce. This was the insertion of stipulations into the marriage contract which give the wife the delegated right to divorce herself on behalf of her husband after recourse to the court, where she must establish one of the inserted conditions. In this way a divorce stipulation became an integral part of every marriage contract, whereas in the past it was up to the woman, and in effect her family, to negotiate such a right for her, which seldom happened and was confined to the property-holding middle classes.
This aspect of the reform not only was retained after the revolution, but also was further expanded to provide women with financial protection in the event of an unwanted divorce. In 1982 new marriage contracts were issued which carry, in addition to the divorce stipulation, another one which entitles the wife, upon divorce, to claim half the wealth that her husband acquired during marriage, provided that the divorce was not initiated or caused by any fault of hers. The only difference is that now the husband can refrain from signing any of these stipulations. This is in conformity with the Shari'a mandate of divorce: a man is free to divorce, to delegate or refrain from delegating this right. But in practice, as I saw in the courts, the presence or absence of his signature under each clause has no effect on the woman's right to obtain a court divorce, as the decision lies with the judge. The amended version of Article 1130 of the Civil Code provides him with discretionary power to issue

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or withhold a divorce requested by a woman (Mir-Hosscini 1993: 65-71). However, I have not yet come across any case in which the wife has received any portion of the husband's wealth, so the new stipulation is in practice ineffective.
As evident even before the 1992 amendments, as far as divorce laws were concerned, there has been more continuity than break with the pre-revolutionary situation. In fact the 1992 amendments arc but the completion of a U-turn from the direction indicated in the early rhetoric of the revolutionary regime on women, with parallels in other spheres of law. What is significant about the 1992 amendments is that they also mark a shift in rhetoric. To appreciate the importance of this U-turn, the amendments should be juxtaposed with a decree issued by Ayatollah Khomeini when the FPL came into effect in 1967, which reads:
the 'Family law* (FPL), which has as its purpose the destruction of the Muslim family unit, is contrary to the ordinances of Islam. Those who have imposed [this law] and those who have voted ffor it] are criminals from the stand-point of both the Shari'a and the law. The divorce of women divorced by court order is invalidi they arc still married women, and if they marry again, they become adullrcsscs. Likewise anyone who knowingly marries a woman so divorced becomes an adulterer, deserving the penalty laid down by the Shari'a. The issue of such unions will be illegitimate, unable to inherit, and subject to all other regulations concerning
illegitimate offspring
(Algar 1985:411)
These arc not simply strong words, they constitute afatwa, bearing the same sanction as the one Khomeini issued when Salman Rushdie's Tlie Satanic Verses came to his attention. Yet it has vanished into thin air. None of the thousands of divorces issued by the Family Protection courts was annulled when (he Islamic Republic was created, and no one was charged with adultery or was declared illegitimate. This in itself is clear evidence of the error of taking Shari'a rhetoric at face value, and the futility of engaging in debates on
theological grounds.8
To understand Shari'a as a lived experience, I believe we need to shift the focus from the ways in which Shari'a-based ideology is oppressive to women to the ways in which its embedded contradictions are empowering to women. In so doing we need to distinguish between what those armed with its discourse say when they are in opposition and what they end up doing when in power. Once in power in Iran, the custodians of the Shari'a found themselves caught by their own rhetoric. They had blamed the Pahlavi regime for denying women their full rights, disparaged Western models of gender relations as degrading to women and harmful to the family, and argued that only Islam can give women back their dignity and secure their rights by restoring morality and upholding the family unit within which they have a secure and valued place.
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It was noi until they assumed power that they were hit by the paradoxical nature of their agenda. There was no way to uphold the family and value women's position within it, and at the same time to uphold men's Shari'a rights to extra-judicial divorce and polygamy. Since men could not be deprived of their prerogatives, the only solution was to protect women in the face of* them; hence the 'amendments' to the divorce laws.
There were also other factors at work, some of more political and others of more socio-economic import. As the coalition of forces that brought the revolution about rapidly broke down, the custodians of the Shari'a came to rely more and more on popular support, including large numbers of women.'-1 This need was intensified with the onset of war with Iraq, and the coming of other internal and external challenges. Thus, not only could women not be excluded from the political arena, as happened for instance in Algeria after independence, but also the 'women's question' became even more central to (he Islamic polity in Iran. This, I believe, has little to do with any specific Islamic position on women's role in politics, for instance Shi'ism versus Wahabism. Rather it has to do with the fact that Islamic discourses on women in Iran became an element in the opposition to the Pahlavis who had made women's rights and their unequal status in the Shari'a a major issue in order both to appease secular forces and to discredit any religiously based opposition. Once in power, the Islamic regime, like the Pahlavis, found that the 'women's question' would not go away but rather was appropriated by opposition factions and thus re-emerged in a different guise.1" This time, whereas the Pahlavis had to deal with Shari'aAxatá opposition to its gender policies, the Islamic regime had to deal with secular and liberal types of argument invoked by the opposition - both inside and outside Iran - to criticise the regime for its gender policies. In this way, the Islamic regime unwillingly had to engage in a dialogue with secular discourses on gender, whose premises were radically different from their own. Such engagement naturally has meant both negation and adoption of some features of the pre-revoluiionary discourses.
As far as women were concerned, this became a double-edged sword; while u prevented them from being marginalised in political discourse, they had to bear the burden of policies whose only rationale and justification were that they were opposite to those of the Pahlavis, and by extension anti-Western. In the process, many Islamic women who at the beginning genuinely, although naively, believed that under an Islamic state women's position would automatically improve, became increasingly disillusioned. These included intellectuals like Zahra Rahnavard, activists like Azam Taleqani, and later on establishment women like Monireh Gorji. These women strongly opposed the previous regime's gender policy because of its Western and non-Islamic orientation. They played an instrumental role in discrediting and destroying the existing women's press and organisations, and did this with the conviction that they were being replaced with belter ones, free from the corruption that marked
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them under the Shah. In reviewing a decade of activities of the Islamic Organisation of Iranian Women, Azam Taleqani gives a revealing account of the ways in which she and her associates took over the pre-revolutionary, state-sponsored Women's Organisation of Iran, how they carried out purges in the process of which she lost the support of some of her associates, and how at the end she and her own Islamically orientated organisation were let down by the provisional government which axed their budget (Taleqani I99I)."
On the socio-economic front, women did not lose their public persona after the revolution. It is true that women in government offices bore the brunt of early purges, but it is equally true that a larger number of women have found types of employment that were not available to them before.1'2 Whereas a large majority of women working in ministries or the private sector before the revolution came from the 'Westernised' and highly educated middle and upper classes, now they come from the so-called 'traditional' middle and lower classes- These women were previously excluded from such jobs, because of their family values, which defined working outside the home as corrupting, and because of their not being part of the patronage system which has always been the main way of finding a job in Iran. The revolution removed both obstacles: its moralistic rhetoric and the new compulsory veiling made work outside the home respectable, and it created a new patronage system with a lowcr-middle-class bias.
Further, the long-drawn-out war with Iraq, and the subsequent economic crisis, have meant a wider participation for women in the outside economy. Women played an active role during the war; some joined the fronts as fighters, nurses and cooks. Those who lost their husbands as martyrs in the war received rewards and pensions, and became effective heads of household. Also, inflation has forced 'traditional' housewives into the labour market, as petty traders, cooks, dress-makers, hair-dressers and so forth. One income in the family is no longer enough to make ends meet. Contrary to prevailing assumptions, women today have a much wider presence and are economically more active outside the home than before the revolution.13 They might be engaged in marginalised activities in comparison to their pre-revolutionary sisters, but this does not mean that they are politically marginalised. These women form a force that the Islamic Republic cannot afford to alienate: it is indebted to them. It is they who have come out to demonstrate, whenever needed. Some are wives and mothers of martyrs, some gave their dowries and jewellery to help pay the cost of the war. It is they who would pay the heaviest price if their husbands were given a free hand in divorce and polygamy; and it is their voice that has found a sympathetic ear among the authorities, as affirmed by Nateq Nuri, the Majlis Speaker. In a recent interview, he referred to the plight of women whose husbands had divorced them as the driving force for introducing deterrents such as entitling women to claim 'domestic wages' {Z<m-eRuz, 13/9/1372: 15).
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A melange of ihrcc factors has made 'the plight of divorced women' a central issue m the Majlis, bringing about legislation which confronts the iniquity of men's Shari'a rights. The first is an unwritten gender code governing MajUx proceedings which assumes the constituencies of its female members to comprise solely women. Such an assumption not only has ensured ihat women's grievances are aired in the Majlis but also in time has become a strong lobbying force in defence of women's rights. The pattern appears to have been set from the start. In her analysis of the proceedings of the first Majlis, Gsfandiari notes that, apart from Azam Taleqani (who was not elected in later rounds), other women deputies tended to confine their remarks to Bills relating to women's issues (Esfandiari 1994; 77). Given the quest to enhance the 'Islamic' aura and composition of the Majlis as the legislating body of the Islamic Republic, this early tendency became stronger in the subsequent Majlis where women parliamentarians came to devote all their energies to women's issues. This is also in line with the ethics of women deputies, who mosdy came from established religious families where the segregation code is accepted.14 In the present Majlis (convened summer 1992) not only are there more female deputies (nine as opposed to four in the first three), but also, as can be inferred from the interview with the Majlis Speaker, they are both more vocal and more active on all fronts.15
Second, what enables female deputies to argue for legislation to protect women is the contradictory terms of the early revolutionary discourse on women and the ways in which they continue to define the regime's gender policies. The discourse makes gender a central issue of an Islamic polity; makes the private public, the personal political and in this way politicises every aspect of women's life; it gives opportunity for political activity to some women, in particular the so-called traditional women who saw politics as outside their realm. Yet it remains adamant in adhering to the Shari'a and in treating women differently, and it denies them some rights that they used to take for granted. These contradictions not only marked the early post-revolutionary rulings, but also found their way into the Constitution of the Islamic Republic. For instance, on the one hand, the Constitution places men and women on the same footing in matters such as protection in law, rights to vote and be elected, access to education and employment (Articles 3, 20), on the other, it subordinates these rights to the supreme rule of the Shari'a which restricts women and treats them as second-class citizens (Articles 4, 91, 93).I6 The family, as the basic unit of Islamic society, soon became the arena where all these contradictions came to the surface. The discourse promotes domesticity and motherhood for women as ideal roles; the constitution promises to guard the sanctity of the family (Article 10);17 yet the return to the Shari'a, as embodied in the Civil Code, which gives men a free hand in divorce and polygamy (Article I133),18 in effect subverts the very sanctity of the family as understood by women, thus going against the Constitution's promise.19
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Such a patent contradiction prompts female deputies to argue that die family must be protected by containing men's Shari'a prerogatives. In so doing, they were in effect articulating the anxieties of their constituents - assumed to consist largely of 'traditional' housewives, who are most affected by the gap between the ideals and practices of the Shari'a under the Islamic Republic. They did not have to look far, since the same rhetoric which advocated domesticity and motherhood as primary roles of a woman could be invoked to give them protection in marriage.
The third factor making divorce a central issue in the Majlis is a legacy of the FPL, which established a legal frame of reference in which women could be treated on equal grounds with men in matters of divorce and child custody. This frame of reference was well known and welcomed by women — at least in urban areas - from all walks of life, even religiously-orientated women, some of whom later became part of the establishment.20 As Esfandiari found in the Majlis transcripts, women parliamentarians 'complained bitterly about the operations of the Special Civil courts'; they objected to the case with which men could obtain divorce; and challenged the assertion that 'God's command is such that any time a man wants to divorce his wife, she has to accept his wish and leave' (1994: 77).
In the early 1980s, when I first started attending Tehran branches of the Special Civil Courts, women who came to court because of their husbands' request to register a divorce were astonished to learn that their husbands now could divorce them without first securing their consent. Some remained incredulous and would ask more than one authority: 'Can he really divorce me, just like this?' In 1985, when I resumed my court attendance, although no longer incredulous, women were insistent on voicing their discontent; some used every occasion to remind the Islamic judge of the injustice of a system which could afford them no protection. On this they often had the judge on their side, especially when a man would insist on exercising his right to divorce and the wife was entirely dependent on him, with no source of income or nowhere to go. It was common to hear women asking the judge: 'Is this how women are honoured in the Islamic Republic? Is this how Islam rewards motherhood? Is this the justice of'Ali that he can throw me out just because he has found a younger wife? Where do I go now? Who is going to take care of me? What will become of my children?' To these questions, the judges had nothing to reply, apart from assuring the women that the court would make sure that they received all their dues. Some judges would employ every available legal device to protect these women against what they deemed an unfair and unjustified divorce. But no judge could prevent a man from exercising his prerogative: they had to uphold the Shari'a mandate of divorce, as reflected in Article 1133 of the Iranian Civil Code, enabling a man to divorce whenever he wishes.21 Many judges - certainly not all - felt that they were in a moral dilemma. Not only did they have to witness the plight of women on a daily basis but also they could not help but feel implicated, as women constantly
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reminded them of their own role as custodians of the Shati'a. In this way, the dismantling of the FPL became not only one of the most tangible evidences of the violation of women's rights in Iran, bul also a measure of the Islamic Republic's failure to deliver its promise to honour and protect women.
Although it is too early to draw conclusions about the actual working of (he 1992 divorce amendments, one can point to ways in which they differ from the FPL, in terms of the rationale of the law, its intentions and its probable impact. Whereas the spirit of the FPL was that of according women the same right as men in matters of divorce and child custody, the spirit of the 1992 amendments is to protect the family by making divorce less accessible to men. A central objection to the FPL - voiced only by the clergy but felt by many men - was that by making divorce easy for women, it harmed the institution of the family. In a 1993 seminar on Family Laws and Women, held to coincide with the Birthday of the Prophet's daughter Fatima, which is also Women's Day in Iran, this objection was phrased by an eminent lawyer, Dr Safa'i: "many felt that the FPL, instead of protecting the family, simply served to protect women' (Zan-e Ruz 27/9/1372: 27).
Despite its different intention and rhetoric, the 1992 law, in practice, is bound to have a very similar impact to the FPL. By making divorce contingent upon the husband's payment of marital dues, the new amendments place the wife in a better bargaining position to negotiate the terms of her divorce than under FPL. If she is the parry who seeks the dissolution of the marriage, by forgoing her mahf - which as practised in Iran is not only substantial but also legally payable upon her request - she is in a better position to obtain a khui' divorce. If he is the one who wants to terminate the marriage, by demanding her ujrat al-mithi, she can make her husband change his mind or even force him to provide her with a kind of alimony However, by requiring every divorcing couple to go through the process of arbitration, these amendments are further complicating the whole process of negotiation thai precedes any divorce, as well as creating a great deal oľ work for already overworked judges.
No study has been published (and probably none was ever done) of the actual working of the dismanded FPL in prc-revolutionary Iran, and wc do not know how its courts operated, and to what extent men were prevented from exercising their right to divorce. What we do know is that its main beneficiaries were working middle-class women, who were seeking divorce and wanted to keep their children. In the Special Civil Courts (prior to the new amendments), by contrast, as my own work suggests, the beneficiaries arc non-working women, entirely dependent on their husbands for support, and women who present no overt challenge to the patriarchal structure of the family. It remains to be seen to what extent these women can use the amendments, and the courts as an arena, to renegotiate the terms of their Shari'a marriage contracts. What is clear at this stage is that, at least in theory, the 1992 amendments do offer a better deal than the FPL did to women who enjoy little
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economic independence. It does make it impossible for men to exercise their Shari'a prerogatives with impunity. This sanction, I believe, can serve women such as my guide in Vanak better than equal rights in matters of divorce and child custody.
HEJAB: THE LAST DITCH
Let me now turn to a second field of operation of the Shari'a mandates in Iran, that of veiling or hejab. Unlike in the issue of divorce, here the early discourse rules supreme and there is no dissent, at least overtly. To understand why no debate is tolerated on hejab, we need to place it in context of the former regime's policies.
In 1936 Reza Shah banned the veil as part of his modernising crusade. Veiled women were arrested and had their veils forcibly removed. This not only outraged clerics but some ordinary women to whom appearing in public without their cover was tantamount to nakedness. Yet it was welcomed by others, both men and women, who saw it as a first step in granting women their rights. Since then, the hejab issue has become a deep wound in Iranian politics, arousing strong emotions on all sides. It also became a major arena of conflict between the forces of modernity and Islamic authenticity, where each side has projected its own vision of morality."
Later the rules were relaxed, and after Reza Shah's abdication in 1941 the compulsory element in the policy of unveiling was abandoned, though the policy remained intact throughout the Pahlavi era. Between 1941 and 1979 wearing hejab was no longer an ofience, but it was a real hindrance to climbing the social ladder, a badge of backwardness and a marker of class. A headscarf, let alone the chador (see p. 155), prejudiced the chances of advancement in work and society not only of working women but also of men, who were increasingly expected to appear with their wives at social functions. Fashionable hotels and restaurants refused to admit women with chador, schools and universities actively discouraged the chador, although the headscarf was tolerated. It was common to see girls from traditional families, who had to leave home with the chador, arriving at school without it and then putting it on again on the way home.
Just as the rules and meanings of hejab became more subde and nuanccd, so did the ways of promoting and defying it. In the 1970s, hejab represented what the Pahlavis had rejected, a symbol of both vice and virtue.23 Apart from Islamist students, many middle-class urban working women took up the scarf to show their own rejection of the Shah's regime, which had good reasons to count on them as allies. Few of these women imagined that veiling would become obligatory if the Shah went (Betteridge 1983; Tabari 1986). In March 1979, when the intentions of the new regime became clear, these women once again took to the streets, this time to protest against the veil; but it was too late, and gradually but surely hejab became compulsory. In  1983, appearing
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in public unveiled became an offence, punishable by the islamic' penalty of up to seventy-four lashes.24 In 1994, there was not a single bare-headed woman to be seen in public anywhere in Iran. No woman could imagine venturing out without a head cover.
No one can doubt that the Islamic Republic has succeeded in veiling women (just as Rcza Shah succeeded in unveiling them earlier), yet it is clear that it has failed to sell the ideal of hejab to many women, especially lo the younger generation (just as the Pahlavis failed to obliterate it)." The hejab issue continues to dominate the political scene: the problem is now that of bad-hejabi, that is 'incorrect veiling'. The phenomenon is not confined to the middle-class streets of northern Tehran, where the latest hair-styles and fashions constantly push back - literally - the edges of the veil. It is most prevalent among school-girls, who started their schooling in a fully islamiseď system, the post-revolutionary generation who have not been exposed to the corrupting influences of the past.
Alarmed by the spread of bad-hejabi, in December 1987, the Women's Association of the Islamic Republic, whose general director is Zahra Mostafavi (Ayatollah Khomeini's daughter), took upon itself to establish a Hejab commission. After some deliberations, the commission - a number of women with close ties to the ruling elite - decided to tackle the problem in two 'moves', or operations. The first, designed to have an immediate and cutting impact, was accomplished by holding the rally of 'Vanguards of Chastity' (tali'eh-daran-e 'efaf). The second operation, intended to have a deep and long-term impact, entailed the creation of six subcommittees charged with conducting research in historical and contemporary aspects of the problem (Neda 1369, no. 3: 36-9).
The activities of one subcommittee, that responsible for Research on Ways lo Combat the Banal Western Culture in Society, were outlined by its head in winter 1991. The research, which involved reviewing and indexing over 135 books, 32 radio programmes and 6 periodicals, focused on three major issues: factors leading to Western cultural penetration; people's disposition to ihem; and ways to counter Western cultural banality. The results on the first issue, as published in the form of three articles in consecutive numbers of the Association's journal Neda (1370/1, nos 8, 9 and 10), can be best described as a partial but orthodox version of the history and dynamics of Iran's relation with the West. The first article discusses the exploitative nature of ihese relations from the time of Shah Abbas, the Safavid King, to the present day; the second deals with the evolution of the clergy's opposition to Western culture; and the third explores the entry points through which Western culture penetrated into Iranian society, which include intellectuals, modern arts, media, and finally dress forms.'26
In 1989, a more rigorous sociological investigation of the reasons for bad-kejabi was commissioned by the Social Affairs division of the Tehran Governor's Office. This initiative is noteworthy, not only as a response to the increasing
Divorce, veiling and feminism in post-Khomeini Iran    155
defiance of hejab by young women in Tehran, but also in that it recognises the problem for the first time as socio-cultural rather than religious and contains some interesting insights. Until then the only strategies for confronting 'bad-veiling' were indoctrination (through schools, wall slogans and the media) and intimidation (by organised attacks on women in the street). The study is a revealing document in its own right, using the latest state-of-the-art sociological methodology to produce a totally non-sociological analysis.
Conducted by a team of university researchers, the study aims to uncover the underlying reasons behind the 'deviant behaviour of Tchrani women with respect to Islamic dress'.  A random  sample of 3,030 women arc graded according to the degree of correctness of their hejab. The highest grade, that is the most correct form, goes to a black chador and maqna'eh worn together [chador U the traditional Persian veil,  a loose sheet of cloth which covers the entire body except the face, and needs to be held by one hand under the chin; and the maqna'eh is a new kind of headgear which is secured under the chin and over the forehead). The second highest grade goes to maqna'eh on its own plus tunic and matching trousers; a non-black chador, that is a chador cither slightly patterned or coloured, gets the same mark. The third grade goes to a plain scarf and tunic. The lowest grade goes to a coloured or patterned scarf or chador. Each of these four grades of dressing are further qualified by three other factors: the tightness of the outfit worn,  together with the extent of hair shown; the heaviness of the make-up worn: and the thickness of stocking worn. On the basis of the above, the women in the sample arc divided into categories in terms of the correctness of their hejab: extremely good hejab, good hejab, moderate hejab, bad hejab, and extremely
bad hejab.
The findings were written up in a report of 361 pages, which includes 180 statistical tables, relating hejab to all conceivable socio-economic factors. Over 48 per cent of women arc found to be 'bud-hejab', 23 per cent arc 'good-hejab', and the rest moderate. (In the tables the categories of very good and good, or very bad and bad are respectively collapsed into good and bad hejab.) One of the major findings of the study is that 'in the category of moderate and good hejab, women follow an established model, thus they enjoy social cohesion, but bad-hejab women lack this cohesion and betray a great deal of diversity and individualism'. From this finding, the study concludes that hejab is now institutionalised, and that since bad-hejabi is not, it is possible to contain and eventually to eradicate it. Altogether seventeen recommendations arc made, such as:
•    women's status in society should be raised in harmony with cultural traditions in order to prevent the sudden descent into bad-hejabi which appears to coincide with the start of a woman's marital life
•    there should be no further investment in trying to change the attitudes of older women who lived under the previous regime
156   Ziba Mir-Hosseini
•    ihc consumerisl habits of the middle and upper middle classes should be controlled by means of the redistribution of wealth
•    there should be a return to traditional forms of urban planning, to narrow streets and culs-de-sac, as wide streets and apartment blocks arc found to be correlated with bai-hejabi.
The remaining thirteen recommendations arc of the same genre, some of which, if taken seriously, would require another revolution on a much wider scale to ensure the full enforcement of hejab.
I have described these two initiatives in some detail so as to give an idea of ihe state of the debate over hejab, which, unlike that over divorce laws, not only lacks sophistication but also is detached from social reality.27 This was not the case early in the revolution. A prominent woman physicist, who herself wore hejab, resigned in protest when it became compulsory in government offices. In her resignation statement she declared that the rule had no religious sanction and would ultimately negate the very purpose of hejab, whose observance must remain a personal decision, incumbent only on those who believe in it.20 Bui today there is nothing of this scope and level in any of the women's papers, which choose not to bring the subject up.29 Why?
Hejab is a powerful metaphor, capable of taking many shades of meaning and performing many functions- At an abstract level, some of the issues raised have been explored by others, notably Milani's (1992) study of the relationship between the veil and the literary silence of women in Iran, But at the tangible level of this chapter, I suggest that hejab has its own payoflš; and in the context of social life in Iran today it is an empowering tool for women.30 What tends to be neglected here is that the enforcement of hejab can be as empowering as its ban, and that hejab is one of those issues where one group of women claims the right to speak for all women. As in other Muslim countries, in Iran the current orthodox form of hejab is largely an urban phenomenon, and an issue for educated and working women, marking the ascendancy of anti-Western and popular strands over those which prevailed a generation ago.
Also neglected is that, unlike on the issue of divorce, women in Iran have always been widely divided on the question of hejab- While it undoubtedly restricts some women, it emancipates others by giving them the permission, the very legitimacy for their presence in the public domain which has always been male-dominated in Iran. Many women today owe their jobs, their economic autonomy, their public persona, to compulsory hejab. There are women who have found in hejab a sense of worth, a moral high ground, especially those who could never fare well in certain elitist and Westernised sections ofpre-revolutionary Iran, which was self-consciously obsessed with the display of wealth and beauty. This obsession goes a long way to explain the current regime's obsession with hejab, one of the aims of which is to keep beauty and wealth hidden. {It is a commonplace in current ami-hejab discourses in Iran that those women who support hgab are themselves either plain-looking or of
Divorce, veiling and feminism in post-Khomeini Iran   157
modest circumstances or both.) In fact, one of the pleas for wearing hejab, as made in a guide for the young bride, tells her, 'sister, have mercy on those unfortunate women who might not be endowed with your youth and beauty; by not displaying your beauty and attracting the admiring eyes of their husbands, you arc also keeping their marriage intact' (Division for Struggle Against Social Corruptions nd: 3). In a convoluted way, this is a plea for solidarity, which, although made by men on behalf of women, appeals to many women.
In a bizarre way, hejab has even empowered those whom it was meant to restrain: Westernised middle-class women. The regime's obsession with its enforcement has given these women, now marginalised, the means for making a mockery of one of its most explicit platforms. It is precisely because of the power and potential threat in such mockery that the regime cannot afford to show flexibility. There is too much at stake. This has given the traditional expression of women's power of subversion in patriarchal systems a different lease of life, a political edge that it has never had before in Iran.3' These women have resisted the rule of compulsory hejab in ways similar to those described by James Scott in his Weapons of the Weak (1985), which lack any kind of organisation and indeed need no co-ordination or planning. Such resistance, which can be nothing more than individual acts of footdragging and evasion, may in the end make an utter shambles of the policies dreamed up by the powerful. Events in Iran in 1993-4 indicate a serious questioning of the legitimacy of the harshness with which hejab has at times been imposed, and that its hegemony is breaking down.
In September 1993, a 17-year-old girl was shot dead in affluent north Tehran because of her bad-hejabi. Although the shooting was not mentioned in the news bulletins of the day, by late afternoon everyone in north Tehran was talking about it. Two versions of the incident prevailed. In one, the girl was standing with her mother in a queue at the baker's, when a young officer from the newly created Vice Squad (amr-e be-ma'ruf, literally promoter of virtue) insulted her for her non-Islamic appearance: losing her temper, the girl tore her scarf off, and he shot her. In the second version, the girl was in a telephone booth when approached by the officer, who ordered her to adjust her scarf down. When she refused, he threatened her with the gun; she dared him to shoot, and he did. A crowd gathered; some took the girl to the hospital, where she died, while others attacked the officer, who barely escaped with his own life.
The rumours became so widespread that the Chief of Tehran Police (which now incorporates the revolutionary guards) had to issue a statement, aiming to set the record straight. He informed the public that the officer was not from the 'Vice Squad', whose members are not armed; he was an ordinary soldier, and it was his carelessness with his gun which led to the girl's death; it was an accident. The incident was also commented on by two women's papers,  £on-r  Ruz  (20/6/1372)  and   Pqym-e  Hqjar (14/6/1372),  the  first
158    Ziba Mir-Hosseini
reflecting the official version, the second using the occasion to reprimand the authorities for (he non-Islamic turn which the whole issue of hejab has taken.
In another incident, in the city of Yazd, a Vice Squad officer, while carrying out his duty to correct a bad-hriab women, was beaten up by her angry husband and his friends. The incident was condemned by the Friday Prayer Leader of Yazd, and an official demonstration was held during which the safety and protection of the officers was demanded. The offender was tried and sentenced to a diya {compensation money) of 15,000 tomans and 45 lashes for the injuries that he caused the officer. As the officer waived the diya, the offender received only the lashes ijwnkuri-ye Isiami 23/9/1372).
It is thus no exaggeration to say that what women should wear in public has become a dilemma not only for women themselves, but also for the Islamic Republic.
DEBATING  WOMEN:  AN   EMERGING  FEMINIST VOICE
Apart from the hejab issue, other early rulings of the Islamic Republic with regard to women have ako been modified, which suggests that the cariy debates that were so harshly stifled a decade ago have now resurfaced (Ramazani 1993). The establishment women's press, namely Zfin-e Ruz, has played an instrumental role in bringing about the recent Majlis rulings to remove the prohibitions which came into existence in 1980 barring women from studying certain subjects such as agriculture and mining. The only educational restriction that now remains is that barring female students from taking up scholarships to study abroad unless they are accompanied by cither husbands or fathers/brothers.
Although limited and confined within the parameters of Islam, the current gender debates reveal a growing dissent from the eariier discourse of the Republic. In some ways one can say that recent Majlis rulings represent the establishment side of the debates. However, there is another side, which aligns itself with a new trend of thought in post-war and post-Khomeini Iran, grounded in a Shi'a discourse which is radically different from the official one.,? This trend espouses a brand of 'feminism' which has the potential to change the very terms of post-revolutionary discourses on women. This is so because it is starting not only to challenge the hegemony of orthodox interpretations but also to question the very Shari'a legitimacy of the laws enforced by the Islamic Republic. These views are aired in Zjman (literally, Women), a women's magazine launched in 1992.
There are at least three significant facts about ^arum's feminism and its line of argument which are novel whether in the Iranian or in the wider Muslim context. First, unlike pre-revolutionary discourses on women in Iran (both Islamic and secular), ^anan's does not subordinate the women's issue to a wider political project, but advocates it in its own right. It appears to be an
Divorce, veiling and feminism in post-Khomeini Iran    159
independent voice, not dictated by the state or a political party, advocated by women who are neither related by marriage or blood to the political elite, nor closely toeing the line of any political faction.33
Second, in line with feminist writings within the context of Islam,34 and in contrast to other Shari'a-bzsed writings on women,3' Ration holds that there is no inherent and logical link between patriarchy and Islamic ideals. It sees no contradiction   between   fighting   for   women's   rights   and   remaining   good Muslims, and makes no apologies for drawing on feminist sources to argue for women's rights and a new reading of Shari'a texts. Unlike other journals in Iran and a mass of Islamic apologetic literature elsewhere,36 Zpnan neither attempts to cover up nor to rationalise the gender inequalities that are embedded in many aspects of Shari'a law, but argues that they can all be addressed within the context of the Shari'a itself. However, unlike Muslim feminists elsewhere, Parian discourse does not simply locate its feminist position within Islam but operates within the parameters of the political discourses and structures of an Islamic Republic. Such a position not only enables ^anan to break the old and tired dichotomy between Islam and feminism but also ensures that its arguments cannot be dismissed by the Islamists merely as
'corrupt and Western'.
Finally, this is made possible by the twin facts that in Iran Islam is no longer part of the discourse of opposition to the state and that those espousing panaris brand of feminism enjoy legitimacy and argue from inside the Islamic discourse. These are women/men who not only subscribed to the Shari'a discourse on women as developed by Ayatollah Motahhari when it was still part of the Islamic opposition to the Pahlavis, but also helped to translate it from rhetoric to policy after the establishment of the Islamic Republic. It was during the process of this translation that some of them came to confront its inherent contradictions, a confrontation which brought about the awareness that they can find support in feminism, regardless of its Western baggage, but they can only meet resistance in patriarchy, regardless of its Islamic credentials.
Zanan'% editor, Shahla Sherkat, and her colleagues were among those who helped to Islamise Zprt't Ruz, the glossy women's magazine of the pre-revolutionary period with the highest circulation. Sherkat was invited to join %an-e Ruz in 1982 and remained its chief editor until 1991 when she was dismissed because of unresolved disagreement over the ways in which gender issues were being addressed. The first issue of Zjman appeared in February 1992, seven months later, to coincide with the thirteenth anniversary of the revolution. Its editorial imparts something of the nature of these disagreements which finally led to its birth. Referring to a decade of fighting against the centuries-old oppression of women in Iran, Sherkat writes:
our experiences repeatedly tell us that awareness is a torch with which today's woman can step onto the dark paths of her destiny, without fearing the deep chasms that cross her every step. Women's awareness, without
160    Ziba Mir-Hosseini
doubt, is society's awareness, but access to this torch is impossible without the existence of freedom. The backbone of freedom is independence and the right to choose. But no independence is possible without knowledge and maturity.
(Zantm:  1991: 2)
Apart from consciousness-raising, fanan assumes an advocacy role through addressing the disadvantages that women face in the realms of religion, culture, law and education. In culture, law and education, it argues for the urgent need for concentrated efforts to offset deep and age-old prejudices and inequalities- In religion, it argues for the urgency of progressive ijtihad (new rulings derived from Islamic law). Some of the articles related to Shari'a debates are written by a cleric in Qpm, who until a year ago used a female pseudonym, Yadgar-c Azadi, which has also a symbolic meaning, 'the souvenir of freedom'. He takes issue with the very premises on which current Shi'a debates on the position of women are based, laying bare their inherent gender bias. His mastery of the Shi'a art of argumentation, coupled with his command of the sacred sources, give a different edge to his writings. Incidentally, the seminal text of this discourse, that is Ayatollah Motahhari's Women's Rights in Islam (1981), has its origins in a number of articles in fjm-e Ruz in the 1960s. Whereas then Motahhari used Western scholarship to explain the reasons and the necessity for the different treatment of women in Islam, the ^anan writer uses Shi'a scholarship to argue for the necessity of a new, feminist, reading of old texts."
This new trend of thought appears to be having repercussions well beyond its small political base. It is even inducing its own counter-discourse, articulated by those women with close links with the political elite who have launched the first ever women's studies journal in Iran, Farzaneh (literally, wise or sage). As Najmabadi has obscrved,1H the appearance of Farzantk in autumn 1993 must be seen in connection with Sherkat's dismissal and the growing dissent within %an-e Ruz, which led to the birth of ^anan.
In winter 1991, immediately after Sherkat's dismissal, Mahbubeh Ommi, who later became the editor of Farzaneh, wrote a series of articles in %an-e Ruz, entided 'Feminism from the beginning until now'. In these articles, Ommi contended that 'feminism' as a concept is alien to Islam and unnecessary to Muslim societies, although it is needed in the Western world where Judaeo-Christianity left little choice for women but to organise themselves to redress their disadvantages. In this way Ommi not only disparaged the stance taken by Sherkat and her allies, but also rejected 'feminism* as irrelevant for women in Iran. However, in an editorial to introduce the new journal, 'Why Farzaneh', her stance is rather different. While still rejecting organised and independent feminism, she argues for establishing the held of women's studies in Iran. Ommi writes that the 'women's question' is a universal one that stems from the 'characteristics of feminine nature' which manifests itself diflerendy in
Divorce, veiling and feminism in post-Khomeini Iran   161
different contexts. This makes it futile to address women's disadvantages in ways similar to those which stemmed from class, race and other differentiation. Instead she argue* that the 'women's question' must be brought into the academic domain where it can be analysed and understood and where suitable strategies can be planned to redress it. Then the solutions found can be filtered into society at large, when 'experts' give their informed advice to policy-makers: in short a 'top-down* approach and prescription for feminism
(Farzaneh 1370, I: 4-5).
One can also detect a change of tone in Oman's rival, ^an-e Ruz, which has been highlighting the problems that women in Iran have to grapple with, drawing attention to gender inequalities in areas of education, health and employment, and exposing the deep-rooted misogyny evident in popular culture. Its December 1993 editorial, to mark Iranian Women's Week, was entitled 'The Presence of Women, Guarantee for the Sustainabiliry of Development', and argued that there can be no sustainable development without women's active participation on all fronts. Similar concerns are expressed in all other journals, even in the national daily newspapers, the exception being Payam-e %an (Women's Message), which is a women's monthly published in Qpm. This journal, whose entire editorial board are men, is the only one which is still holding the early torch, and seems to be unaffected by these recent currents which have even caught the attention of some secular Iranian feminists who live in exile.119
CONCLUSION
How arc these 'liberal' tendencies in Iran being viewed by the media and by women in Iran and outside, and how are they likely to develop in the years to come? Events are still unfolding and it is too early to draw firm conclusions, yet some preliminary observations can be made. First, the 1992 divorce amendments seem so far to have escaped the attention of the foreign press, which gave such acclaim in the late  1960s to the Shah's Family Protection
Law. Why?
One reason must be that these developments do not fit with the image of Iran maintained in current discourses in the West. In Iran itself the recent amendments have not been met with unqualified euphoria but simply have been welcomed as a 'first step' in the right direction. In an article which appeared in Zanan in February 1993, Mehrangiz Kar, a woman lawyer, discusses the new amendments from a legal perspective, listing problems and legal tangles in terms of both substantive law and implementation. She contends that these amendments as they stand are not going to improve women's lot but should be viewed as a 'tesť. A similar point was raised by the Women's Affairs division of the Tehran Governor's Office, two of whose members attended court sessions for a week in autumn 1993 to find out how the law was being implemented, and whether divorced women were receiving
162   Ziba Mir-Hosseini
(he 'domestic wages' to which the new law entitles them. In their report, they state that as long as men and women have unequal access to divorce, as long as the husband has the means to coerce his wife into giving her consent to a divorce desired by him, and as long as a woman has to compromise all her Shari'a rights to obtain her husband's consent to a divorce, the right to claim 'domestic wages' would offer women little protection. In another magazine article, a judge is interviewed on the implementation of the new law. Both the questions asked and the judge's response arc indicative of their critical stance iffavid-e Fazilat no. 15, Shahrivar 1372: 10-13). The judge raises similar points to those raised by the lawyer in ^anan, and says that, as the law stands, the legislator's intention, which is to provide better protection for women, can easily be bypassed He complains that the Majlis passed the law in haste without proper consultation with practising judges. In short, the 1992 law is seen as insufficient on its own, and more constructive changes are demanded.
When I eventually arrived at court on that day in September 1993,1 learned that since the enactment of the 1992 divorce amendments there had been over a hundred cases of women demanding the ujral al-milhl, 'domestic wages'. Yet the courts had not yet issued any judgement; the judges do not know what to make of the whole concept and find it legally irrelevant and inapplicable- And women coming to seek divorce are also not that happy with it; as my lawyer friend put it, 'what women need is something that puts them in the same negotiating position as their husbands'. I also learned that the new law is bound to be revised, since it is creating real legal problems for the courts. When we left the court, I told my lawyer friend what my guide had said about how children sometimes matter more than a husband to a woman. Her response was: 'Then we must suffer, we will never get anywhere unless we are prepared to leave our children behind; I promise you, it will be he who then comes begging for a compromise.'
By bringing home to women from all walks of life the harsh reality of what marriage can entail under the Shari'a when enforced by the modern state machinery, the Islamic Republic has acted as a catalyst for the emergence of what can be described as an indigenous - locally produced - feminist consciousness.40 Such a consciousness has always been part of the experience of women in Iran, but, in Ardener's words (1975) in a 'muted' form, which is now slowly but surely finding its own voice, a mode of expression, and even a kind of legitimacy. More importandy, it is no longer confined to the private domain of the family, but has extended into the public arena. Today, concepts such as 'male dominance' and 'patriarchy' are increasingly used by ordinary women to make sense of their everyday experience. Interestingly, both concepts are collapsed into mardsalari (rule by men), which in subtle ways does not implicate all men: not a woman's father or brother, who are seen as her natural allies, but her husband whose power over her is officially encouraged, and more importantly the male political elite, who have endorsed it.41 This
Divorce, veiling and feminism in post-Khotneini Iran    163
term is familiar to all, debated on radio and television, and yet its meanings and connotations arc different from what they used to be in pre-revolutionary Iran when the concept was taken by intellectuals from Western feminist
discourses.42
What has facilitated this is the state's ideological understanding of Islam which, by demolishing the de facto divide between the personal and political, not only opens the way to challenge the hegemony of the orthodox interpretations of the Shari'a but also gives a new dimension to the tension inherent in its practice in the twentieth century. And it is this tension which has brought about the changes in divorce laws whose provisions, in theory, surpass those of pre-revolutionary  laws   in  benefiting ordinary  women.  The  tension  is nowhere more evident than in the dispute between the Majas and the Council of the Guardians over these changes. In March 1991 the Council, whose task is that of upholding the Shari'a, objected to the concept of 'household wages', as formulated by the law passed by the Majlis. The dispute between these two bodies was not resolved until November 1992, and then only through the intervention   of   the   highest   constitutional   authority,   the   Assembly   for Ascertaining the Regime's Interest [Majma'-e Tashkhis-e MasUhat-e Ntzam). In December the new law came into effect, in an emasculated form, to the extent that it failed to achieve its objective, and became irrelevant in practice; hence there came another wave of protests, by the women's press and organisations, and even the judges, who objected that they had not been consulted. The divorce laws are once again due to be debated in the Majlis. It remains to be seen to what extent they will be grounded this time in court practices and
the realities of marital disputes.
Meanwhile women in the courts and outside are making their voices heard and their presence felt; and the changed economic system, which has made it increasingly difficult for their husbands to be the only providers, is shaking the very foundation on which men's Shari'a rights rest. The changes in the divorce laws and the absence of changes in the hejab laws are but a moment in a process set into motion when the Islamic Republic was born. This process has inadvertendy been nurturing an indigenous 'feminism' which is as much rooted in Iranian family structures as it is in the interaction of Islamic and Western ideals of womanhood. It could emerge only after challenging and rejecting the state-sponsored and Western-inspired 'feminism' of the Pahlavis, as well as the liberal-leftist feminism of 1970s women's liberation, and yet in the process assimilating some of the features of both.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
An eariicr draft of this chapter was presented in a lecture series on 'Feminism and Islamic Law: Contextual Approaches', convened by the Centre of Islamic and Middle Eastern Law, University of London. I am grateful to Mai Yamani, the convener or the scries, and to Richard Tapper and Azam Torab for critical readings of the paper.
164    Ziba Mir-Hosseini
NOTES
1    E.g. Afshar (1982; 1987; 1989; 1994); Sanasarian (1982; 1992); Azari (1983); Mahdavi (1985); Nashat (1983); Tabari (1986); Tabari and Yeganeh (1982); Reeves (1989); Adelkhah (1991); Ramazani (1993); V. Moghadam (1988, 1993); Hacri (1989, 1994); Omid (1994); Najmabadi (1991; 1994); Alkhami and Friedl (1994).
Interestingly, a large portion of ihc second wave of this literature is produced by the same authors, some oFthem under different names (some originally wrote under pseudonyms, others arc now adopting them). This literature, I bdievc, should be treated as a particular discourse about Iranian women, namely that of the secular feminists, some with leftist inclinations, who left (ran shortly after the revolution. Some of these women, mainly those active in or sympathetic to leftist organisations, never returned to Iran but retained a keen interest in post-revolutionary developments as ihcy affect women. The Persian-language feminist journal, ffimeh-ye Digar, published in North America, has been a forum for some of them. Elsewhere, I examine this literature and its discourse in a larger project of which this chapter is a pan.
Another genre of literature on women in post-revolutionary Iran is produced by some Western women anthropologists, such as Higgins (1985); Bettcridge (1983); Hegiand (1983); Fricdl (1983; 1989; 1994); Bauer (1993).
2   For an insightful discussion of the in appropriateness of Western ideologies of emancipation to the Iranian situation, sec Moore (1988: 173-8).
3   It is with great reservation that I use the term feminism, even in Moore's minimalist definition, liiere is no equivalent term for it in Persian, although as a consciousness it has always existed. This consciousness in its indigenous forms remains largely unexplored in the Muslim context. Studies of feminism in the Muslim world predominantly deal with its expression among the Westernised and educated elite and align it with its Western counterpart.
4   Talaq-t ng'i is a suspended form of divorce which becomes final only when the wife completes three menstrual cycles. All divorces are na'i unless they are initiated by the wife, who secures her husband's consent by offering him an inducement to release her (khul' or mubaral)', or they meet one of the following conditions: if the marriage has not been consummated; if the woman is past her menopause; if she has not reached the age of mcastruation; or if It is the third successive divorce. On forms and procedures of divorce in the Shari'a as practised in Iran, see Mir-Hosscini (1991: 36-41, 54-83).
5   There is also a tendency to divorce the Shan'a from the wider context within which U U meaningful, for instance as in Afshars (1987) and Najmabadi's (1994: 374) evaluation of return to Shan't after the revolution. As I have argued elsewhere, no understanding of Islamic law and what it entails for women is complete without examining its pracúce, i.e. how it is applied in courts, and how individuals use it to setde their marital disputes. For example, despite overt inequalities between the rights of men and women within Muslim marriage, there are mechanisms both in Islamic law and in social practice which can balance the situation. In Iran, one cannot examine divorce and women's access to it without considering the central role of ma/tr (dower, an integral pan of every Muslim marriage contract), and the ways that women use this Islamic institution in order to determine the terms of continuation or dissolution of their marriages (Mir-Hosseini 1993: 72-83).
6   For an English translation of the FPL, sec Naqavi (1967).
7   The letter was issued 26 February 1979; see Tabari and Yeganeh (1982: 232).
8   For instance, see Al-Hirbi (1982); Memissi (1991).
9   For popularisl bases of the revolution, see Abrahamian (1993).
Divorce, veiling and feminism in post-Khomeini Iran    165
10   On this, see Najmabadi (1994); Sanasarian (1992); Ramazani (1993); Haeri (1994);
Moghadam (1993).
11   For an account of the Women's Organisation of Iran, see Sanasarian (1982) and for an early account of Talcqani's organisation^ see Tabari and Yeganeh (1982:
223-7).
12   Those who were purged from the offices were women who were seen as following a Western model of womanhood. Some left the country, and many of those who stayed resigned or look early retirement as they found the new working conditions intolerable.
13   There arc contrasting views on this; while some argue that women's higher panic-ipation in the labour force is reflected in official statistics (V. Moghadam 1988), others refute this (Omid 1994; F. E. Moghadam 1994).
14   Otherwise these women would not have qualified to stand in the first place; every candidate is screened by a pre-ekctoral committee which examines their 'Ulamte' credentials. There is also an extended interview with two of these women in which they talk of their achievements and frustrations in the Majlis, confirming that they see their role as promoting women's rights on Islamic linea. For instance, Mrs Dabagh states: 'out of 270 deputies in the Majlis only 4 are women. No matter how hard these four try, they cannot discuss a high percentage of women's Islamic needs and rights in the MtgUs and have them legislated' (JfeJa, 1370, no. 6: 16-30).
13 The interview is indeed a revealing account of the Majlis's perception of iu female members. For instance, Nateq Nuri states: 'thi; sisters that we have in this Majlis arc all educated, enlightened and cultured; of course this U not to say that the sisters in the previous Majlis were not... the other day 1 was astonished to hear a sister saying really sensible things and expressing 'expert' opinions in a debate on . . . which was indeed a specialized topic; we have even one sister who is in our legal committee ... sisters now take pan in many debates, but they are most active with regards to matters concerning sisters and women' (Zati't Ruz, 13/9/1372, nos 1437 and 1438: 15).
16   For women in the constitution, sec Nashat (1983: 195-216), Sanasarian (1982: 138-9); for women's debates in the Assembly of Experts at the time of the constitution, sec Esfandiari (1994: 63-9); and for how these contradictions in practice provide room for manoeuvre, see Sanasarian (1992), V. Moghadam (1993: 171-82) and Ramazani (1993).
17   Which reads: 'since the family is the fundamental unit of an Islamic society, all relevant laws, regulations and policies must facilitate its formation, guard its sanctity and ensure its relations according to Islamic rules and morals'.
18   Which reads 'a man can divorce his wife whenever he wants'.
19   Polygamy is an area of Islamic law where the conflict between law and social practice is most acute. For a discussion of the tensions involved, see Mir-Hosscini
(1993: 127-8).
20   U has been suggested that the FPL 'represents a brief interlude in the otherwise continuous application of the Stum'a' (Higgins 1985: 479), and had no bearing on the lives of women from the popular classes. But as I have argued elsewhere, the impact of these reforms should not be sought merely in the extent to which they reach all sectors of the society, but in their power to provide a frame of reference which can be used in justifying demands and expressing grievances in the course of a marital dispute (Mir-Hosseini 1993; 191-4).
21   On the evolution and procedures of Family courts in posťrevolutionary Iran, see (Mir-Hosseini 1993, especially chs 1 and 2).
22   For a discussion on this, sec Najmabadi (1991; 1994); Haeri (1994).
23   For a fuller treatment of this, see the above sources.
166    Ziba Mir-Hosseini
24   Article 102 of Islamic Punishments [la'ziral) passed in 1983.
25   Highly religious women, who have always worn ihe iradiiional form of chador, dismiss the new form of veiling, which they call bi-hejabi (without hejab). They appear to have their own definition of hejab, which is not the same as that promoted by the authorities. I am indebted to Azam Torab for this point.
26   The subcommittee's findings on the other two issues have not yet been made available.
27   Another study, this time by a psychologist, Shahriar Ruhani (1369/1990), purports lo demonstrate why and how the observance of hejab can enable women to attain independence and psychological well-being, given that their psychological makeup is radically different from thai of men.
28   Sec also speeches made by Azam Taleqani and others in 1979 (Tabari and Ycganeh 1982: 171-200).
29   There is, however, a passing reference to bejah in Adineh (a cultural and social journal) whose special 1373 Nowmz (Iranian New Year, 21 March 1994) issue is devoted to 'Women of Iran' (Adineh, no. 90-1: 73).
30   For instance, on Iran see Adelkhah (1991: 198-215); V. Moghadam (1993: 179-80); Haeri (1994: 107-14). On Egypt see El-Guindi (1981) and on Turkey, Dclancy(l994).
31   Women's power to subvert the patriarchal order is well documented. For some examples, see Hatem (1986); Kandiyori (1988).
32   This trend of thought has its clerical core in Qpm, on which little has been reported; and its intellectual core in Tehran, gathered around Dr Abdul Karim Sorush. He was one of the masterminds of the so-called 'Cultural Revolution' of 1980—2. Whereas then he engaged in debates with those who were then labelled as liberals, now he is engaging a debate with those who are defined as 'hardliners'. For a journalistic account, sec R. Wright's article in Ihe Guardian (I February 1995).
33   For women in pre-revolutionary resistance movements in Iran, sec S. Afshar (1983); Moghissi (1993); Shahshahiiii (1984); and emerging feminist voices in the wake of the revolution, see Tabari (1986).
34   For instance, secular Muslim feminists such as Mcmissi (1991) and Ahmed (1992).
35   In the Shi'a context, the writings of Ayatollah Moiahhari arc most prominent, reproduced almost verbatim in numerous publications after the revolution, A new version of Motahhari's thesis, put forward in a book by Ayatollah Javadi-Amoli in 1992, was critically reviewed by Zanan (cf. Mir-Hosseini 1995). For a review of similar literature in the Surini context, see Stowasscr (1993).
36   This literature is characterised by opposition to feminism (as it is seen to advocate both secularism and Westernisation) and a defensive or apologetic tone (justifying the Shari'a treatment of women).
37   For an analysis of the legal articles of Zanan, sec Mir-Hosseini (1995).
38   In a lecture delivered February 1994 at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, sponsored by the Iranian Community Centre of London.
39   For instance, Najmabadi (ibid.) gave an interesting discussion of Zanan, in which she stated that she could enter a dialogue with the journal since she considered that it was prepared to question the 'foundationalism' of the Islamic discourse on women.
40   It is puzzling that this consciousness is either ignored in the literature, or, if it receives attention, appears to be quite misunderstood, as in Friedl's interesting but flawed discussion (1994). Fried! starts by arguing that 'women not only can be both oppressed and powerful simultaneously, but ... they can derive power to effect changes in their own and others' affairs from the very relations of inequality that define their position' (1994: 151), yet she ends up concluding thai in doing
Divorce, veiling and feminism in post-Khomeini Iran    it>7
so women noi only fail to challenge 'the existing hierarchy of domination' but help to cement 'the gendered system of super- and subordination' (1994: 167). Her conclusions are largely shaped by the assumption that 'legitimate sources of power for women become increasingly scarce in an androcentric, male-dominated society such a* the Islamic Republic of Iran' (1994: 166). Not only does she ignore the paradoxical ways in which, as we have seen, the Islamic Republic has empowered women, but also she negates the very basis of her own argument by devaluing women's strategics and seeing them as doomed.
41   For the ways in which pious women are now separating their faith from the ideology of the state, sec Kamalkhani (1993); Torab (1994).
42   In summer 1994, in a village near Arak, I found myself discussing mardsalari with a 17-year-old girl who spends winters in Qpm and summers in the village. She first heard the term in a discussion broadcast by the Voice of America on gender biases in Islam, and heard its refutation on the national radio. In her words, 'murrf-salon is when women are imposed on; and it is done in many families and in many situations, but not always, and not on every issue.' She was clearly defining the term in the light of her own experiences. Research needs to be done on how this gender concept, and others that arc now gaining currency, are being constructed by ordinary women, by the press, media and the law.
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