The Legal nature of Divorce for a Consideration and its Cultural and Social Effects under Iranian Law

The importance of establishing a family and its continuity in Islam is to the extent that dissolution of marriage even by mutual consent of the spouses is the most detestable act in view of the Prophet. As the continuity and survival of the marriage is a basic principle in Islam, Islamic law has provided an opportunity for the husband to come back to the family and revive this sacred institution by offering the simple mechanism of the waiting period (ʻiddah) in the revocable divorce. Nevertheless, there are certain kinds of divorce, known as irrevocable divorce (ba’in), by which the marital relation is dissolved and the revival of the marriage is possible only by making a new marriage contract. In khulʻ divorce (initiated by the wife, based on her dislike of her husband) and in mubarat divorce (initiated by the wife, based on mutual dislike of the spouses) the wife obtains divorce by paying a fixed sum (or transferring a property) to her husband and the divorce becomes irrevocable (ba’in). In divorce for a consideration there is no dislike from both spouses but the wife by paying an agreed sum (or transferring a property) to her husband or by releasing her husband from his duty to pay her past maintenance or from his duty to pay her dower or from his duty to pay other debts owed his wife, obtains divorce. This article examines the legal nature as well as the cultural and social effects of this kind of divorce. Facilitating the separation between the spouses through paying a sum to the husband by the wife without the existence of any dislike between them would increase the number of divorces and for this reason paying attention to the cultural and social effects of this divorce becomes necessary.