Soosan Khanoom

Yolanda

You should know that more than any thing else Shah married for the reason of breeding ...

What's love got to do .. got to do with it   ... ok I am not going to sing the song

anyway ... 

The story goes like this ......  

Once upon a time there was a king who wanted a boy ....

Fouzieh did not give him

Surayeh could not give him

Farah did

Thanks God , otherwise he wouldn't be stopping there and would be going and going and going .....

Now the existing problem is worse than having a son ......  we need to give back to this king his kingdom ..  LOL

MG and radius-of-the-persian-cat

MG,

Thanks for the links .....hmmm  free love ....  It actually make sense ...  a lot of sense ... but there are some tiny issues with it ... we can discuss it later  ... by the way the communists did not get it either. It is like going from one extreme to another .... 

Radius-of-the-persian-cat  thanks for your insightful and accurate observation of this situation .... I enjoyed reading your argument .... 

I should add that when the couples are truly in love then they can provide a much more stable house for the kids ....  

Mohammad

I have also heard that American men are trying to stay away from American women .... Well they are men and they are still looking for submissive women.   I think they can only be satisfied marrying a robot cause it does as these men wish ..... 

Stepford wife .... LOL   

Amir

Thanks for your comments. I should,however, say that this culture of ours was there before Islam .... Zoroastrian clerics were no better in crucifying love for the sake of the business of marriage ... 

Qrang

Your points are all well taken ...... 

It is so true , When it comes to love and passion in our culture we are just ending up with our poets .....

Sadly, that even this has been taken away from us .... look at all the passinate love poems of Hafez and the fact that religious figures are trying to force feed us that he wrote it all for God ...... oh come on  ..... hafez was drunk with the love of a girl called " Nabat "  

It is true that he wrote some honest poems about the spiritual love... but how can anyone find about the spiritual love or  God without first experiencing the love on earth ?  

We are not bunch of priest or nun and our religion did not even asked us to be ... what is it that clergies are so afraid of the sensual love and anyone who talks about it?  

Passion and sensual love is something that has given Persian poetry its beautiful existence  but again as you mentioned it it is only limited to our poets .... 

comments

The shape and figure of someone does not make you fall in love with that person ...NO WAY ... that is not true for both men and women ......  

to fall in love is more about quality ..... the fact that this person shares similar interests with you ..... even love at first sight if you look deeper and research is more than just how the person looks  ....

Quite contrary, what you are bringing up is number one reason that men are getting married khastergari style in Iran .....

I want this height, this weight, and this look..... now let us go shopping ..

LOL 

Faramrz .. Excellent Observations ..

 that's pretty much it .... I bet the last group are the ones that actually fell in love before marriage or were lucky enough to fall in love afterwards !

Love & Marriage, Horse & Carriage!

The problem of love and marriage is not limited to the Iranians or our culture. It is universal.

Looking around me, I see three types of marriages that have lasted beyond the usual 7 to10-year breaking point.

There are couples who are in the “average” marriages where they are still fighting and arguing and trying to change each other. But because of the kids or lack of alternatives, they are still married to each other. They are not happy with their marriages and they make sure that everyone around them knows about it. And it is always the other party that is to blame! These couples are the most fun to talk to at the parties!

Then there are the “successful” marriages where the couples have lowered their expectations significantly and have completely given up and accepted their faith. The couples in this scenario are like roommates or two people in a small boat in the big ocean. They need each other and are completely dependent on each other. These couples are the most boring ones in the parties.

Finally, there are the “unusual” marriages where the couples are actually friends and talk to each other and seem to be happy to be around each other. You don’t see too many of this kind of marriages. Friendship, similar interests and a genuine understanding of one another are the corner stone of this type of marriage. These people are the ones that you want to take a picture with at the parties!

I support Iranian style in some extent.

The first question: What's love?  A possible answer: 

"What we call falling in love creates a dopamine imbalance that is akin to being on certainaddictive drugs." 

Some people fall in love once a month, some once every 2 years and etc.  Love is similar to sex.  One turns on with a sexual structure of another person, the other (or the same individual) falls in love with the structure (mainly emotional structure) of that person.  We have sex addicts and we have love addicts.

It's not too hard to fall in love, but it's really hard to stay in love. What keeps partners together is "stability, security and productivity".  

Ahhhhhh Love, my favourite 4 letter word.

Sure beats chador and shalagh if your hair is showing.

Iranian culture pre islam is one thing... respects men and women as having equal worth and teaches about love and friendship. 

Even Hafez, celebrated Irans preislamic culture, while he was post islamic, he wrote all of his love poems in the language of irans scholars so no muslim would know the poems real meanings and his constant ridicule and humiliation of islam.

Iranian culture post islam... well its enough to give you a thorough es-haal for a month, by which time you'll forget about love and only want to stop the pain.

Among our non islam following iranians our culture and love life is fine, sadly this represents a minority of Iran,

This lack of true iranian culture among most iranians is partly why we don't even have a noble unelected king ruling our nation, when the late king loved and gave without condition, but had to leave when his love was met with out decency, but lies and hatred.

Love and Marriage ...

It is not only an Iranian matter of discussion.

In Europe traditions have been the same as in Iran in the past. Marriage was standard alliance between 2 famillies done for stability and economical reasons and Love have been a matter for poets. Euope has Romeo & Julliette and we have Lely & Majnoon or Khossro & Shirine.

Only in 20 century , we started speaking about Marriage for Love in Europe and mentelities have evolved since.Now we are speaking about Gay Marriage in 21 century.

The differnce is that Iranian mentalties backward to 10 century and Europe is Forwarding.

Regards.

Orang

The romantic love is common human nature

Dear Mohhamad Ala,

Your statement " Love has been a major part of Iranian culture " and its reference to persian poetry, music, paintings etc. clearly relates to the romantic idea of love, which is a common archetype in all human cultures. It is not only the by far richest source of arts, culture and philosophy, but nowaday even used (or abused) in the advertising industry and tabloid press (just remember the unbearable media-hype around the recent royal or celebrity marriages in the UK and Monaco). 

The relationship between men and woman that form the foundation of a family are different and completely unromantic. As Soosan Khanoom pointed it out, it has much more to do with responsibility, prosperity and stability. And therefore it is neither a big source for cultural reflections nor for the advertising industry, but it is a big issue in politics. People who live in a stable family, with the feeling of beeing (mainly economically) responsibel for each other and for the kids are much easier to control and are much less willing to take risks or to uprise against the political system. Therefore, the idea of free love (i.e. love liberated from its economic, social and political context) was always an issue of liberation movements. Alexandra Kollontai tried to integrate this into marxism (although Karl Marx and Freidrich Engels themself very clearly described the family as the foundation of each society). Anti-catholic protestantism got rid of the idea that a marriage is gods-will and can not be divorced by people themself. The tradition of arranged marriages in some cultures (including the iranian) is probably the most extreme example of how love between two person can be instrumentalized for the sake of economic benefit. If there would not be a social or financial discrimination of single men or woman, living on their own  with or without children in long- or short lasting relationships, than Love as a major part of our ALL culture would have a greater chance.

In my very own experience, however, for kids in their childhood it is definitly better if they live in a "stable" traditional family, with a dad and a mom around (not necesarrily the biological parents). But maybe this is also just because kids grow up with all the fairy-tale pictures of mother, father, kids.

PS: I am married since 20 years and have a son. All our friends say we live in big harmony. But it is because we are pretty tolerant to each other. 

..........

Wow! What a shocking blog! So in your opinion, they marry for the sake of reproduction only! Are you sure it is true?

Shah and Soraya were in love, right? even though they did not have any kids! Too bad that the lady was infertile; they had to divorce each other!

According to wikipedia:

After the divorce, the Shah, who had told a reporter who asked about his feelings for the former Queen that "nobody can carry a torch longer than me".......

thank you for sharing your thoughts!

Free Love and one of its advocates: Alexandra Kollontai

//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandra_Kollontai#S...

An interesting historical figure. Pay close attention to her idea of Free Love, cheers

//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_love

"Love" has been a major part of Iranian culture.

There are different philosophies in marriage which is not unique to us.  For example, an American colleague who married twice never wanted to marry an American woman.  The wave of American men (not only white) coming to China says something about American women.   I know several people whose life style is to spend all their money.  They believe if there is less money, no one can sue them (which is different than Iran).    Iran cannot be compared to itself especially when married couples settle in other countries, for example USA and Canada where most of marriages have ended up in divorce.   There are other factors which you did not mention.  For example, as Iranians we care for our relatives, especially our parents which add to marriage complications.  Many of us care for our food, music, and respect for elderly regardless of where we live.     

In my view: marriage (with or without children) is about respecting our culture and not taking an advantage of the other partner, otherwise, marriage can fall apart.  There is no reason to stay together and fight over what is important to each partner.

"Love" has been a major part of our culture.  This is evident in our poems, drawings, music, etc.