An Empirical Study of Crime of Child Marriage in the Iranian Legislative and Judicial Discourse from the Perspective of Critical Criminology (Social Constructivism Approach)

From the perspective of critical criminology, crimes are affected by the political, social, economic system and especially the legislative structure, criminal justice as well as the influence of power. Among them is the theory of social constructivism, which limits the rule-making in the legislative or judicial system to behaviors that sometimes endangers the position and interests of minority in society. Therefore, crimes and legal concepts are only a social construct and reality, which are constructed according to specific temporal and spatial conditions. This article, which is qualitative, descriptive-analytical in terms of method, with the study of 30 family court cases in Rey and Qom in 2020, interviews with family court judges and children's families, from a  critical criminological perspective and specifically based on the tradition of constructivism, therefore two aspects of the crime of child marriage (the subject of Article 646 Iraninan penal code) including the legal age of marriage and the concept of the best interst of child in child marriage (both mentioned in Article 1041 civil law), have been critically analysed. The findings indicate that these two aspects are constructed only on the basis of the criteria of the minority governing the legislative process, therefore, it is always possible to deconstruct them