The Effect of Women's Employment on the Amount and Nature of Alimony in Light of Iranian Civil Law and Judicial Practice
Subject Areas : Family LawMahdieh Rezaei 1 , Saber Habibi Savadkouhi 2 , Behnam Ghanbarpour 3
1 - Master's student in Private Law, Department of Law, Faculty of Humanities, Ghaemshahr Branch, Islamic Azad University, Ghaemshahr, Iran.
2 - Assistant Professor of Private Law, Department of Law, Faculty of Humanities, East Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.
3 - Associate Professor of Jurisprudence and Law, Department of Law, Faculty of Humanities, Ghaemshahr Branch, Islamic Azad University, Ghaemshahr, Iran
Keywords: Alimony, wife's employment, husband's permission, infidelity, obedience, Iranian civil law, family rights.,
Abstract :
The institution of maintenance (nafaqah) in Iran’s legal system, as one of the most important financial obligations of the husband, is grounded in the principles of Imamiyyah jurisprudence and Articles 1106 to 1111 of the Civil Code. On the other hand, the expansion of women’s employment and their economic participation in both formal and informal spheres over recent decades has raised new questions regarding the relationship between the husband’s permission for the wife’s employment and the wife’s entitlement to, or forfeiture of, maintenance, particularly in cases where the wife’s employment is undertaken without the husband’s permission or is practically in conflict with the duty of obedience and the interests of the family. The central question is to what extent, within the framework of Imamiyyah jurisprudence and Iran’s Civil Code, a wife’s employment, with or without the husband’s permission, can affect her entitlement to maintenance, and what solutions existing judicial practice has offered in this regard.The present study, using a descriptive–analytical method and relying on library-based data (jurisprudential sources, statutes, judicial practice, articles, and theses), seeks first to clarify the jurisprudential foundations governing maintenance, obedience, qiwamah, and the husband’s permission, and then, through an analysis of the main provisions of the Civil Code, particularly Articles 1102, 1105, 1106, 1108, and 1117, as well as family protection laws, to examine the impact of women’s employment on the nature and amount of maintenance. The preliminary findings indicate that, in both jurisprudential foundations and Iran’s Civil Code, the general principle is that a woman’s employment, as an economic status, does not affect her entitlement to maintenance; rather, what may lead to the forfeiture of maintenance is nushuz, understood as the failure to fulfill general and specific marital obedience.
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