A Study on Kurdish Women's Point of View toward Pattern of Consanguineous Marriage in Mahabad

In recent decades, the family institution has experienced many changes. Considering different nature of human societies, it is not expected these change were the same everywhere. The aim of this paper is to study generality of consanguinity among Kurdish married women in Mahabad and to explain their view toward this pattern of marriage. Data were taken from the Mahabad Fertility Survey (MFS) conducted on a sample of over 700 households in April 2012. Results show that 36/9 percent of marriages are consanguinity and among them, 23/2 percent of women were married to their close relatives. According to this study, consanguineous marriage is inversely correlated with the level of women's education. Women who have experienced consanguineous marriage more than others are in favor of their children marriage to relatives. Multivariate analysis showed that women have more autonomy, higher cultural capital as well as women who have higher education, are against the marriage of children with relatives more than others. The results indicate that the impact of modernization forces in changing marriage patterns in the city of Mahabad has not emerged simultaneously in all social strata.