A religious jurisprudential study of Clause 49 of the protecting family law on the criminalization of not registering marriage

Clause 49 of the protecting family law passed in 1392 in a section of clause 49, in order to keep the integrity of the family, has recognized not registering marriage as a crime and the men who do not register their marriages in an official registry office will be given a jail sentence up to one year. This study, with the aim of comparing Islamic republic of Iran’s criminal law along with the actualization of the article 4 of the law according to religious standards, criticizes this section of clause 645 using religious jurisprudential and legal reasons and presents the following reasons for proving the illegitimacy of this section of the clause: lack of registration in the Infallibles’ (Ma’soomeen) lives, the opposition of an obligation to register with the religious and moral principle of facilitating the marriage, the incompatibility of the criminalization of not registering marriage and the secretive nature of marriage, the opposition of this law with other laws, and insufficient deterrence and defeat of purpose. Subsequently, a religious jurisprudential and legal criticism of the corroborating evidence for this law which are “the obligation of registering marriage to reserve the third parties’ rights”, “keeping the family integrity and improving it”, and “the necessity of preventing other family crimes” will be presented.