By Vania Raebel | October 7, 2019
Subsidized Weddings
Due to rising costs and an unstable economy, more and more millennials in Iran are choosing not to get married. An increasingly-materialistic culture has also raised the prices of dowries, or jahizieh, to at least $16,000. As a result, some couples have resorted to cohabitation instead, despite sex before marriage being a punishable crime under Iran’s sharia-based laws.
The Iranian government has repeatedly expressed its concern over this phenomenon. To combat this issue, the government maintains an annual fund amounting to over $700 million to cover the costs of weddings for couples who wish to get married. These government-funded weddings are usually more modest, with only the couple’s immediate family members in attendance.
