The technical deputy of the population health office at the Ministry of Health has announced that the Interior Ministry is entering the issue of “white marriage.”
Although there are no statistics on the prevalence of white marriage in Iran, Mohammad Eslami, technical deputy of the population health office and head of the fertility department at the Ministry of Health, told ILNA news agency that a headquarters has been formed at the Interior Ministry under the leadership of the deputy minister for social affairs, which is examining the issue of white marriage alongside several other matters, and reports are likely to be released in the near future.
White marriage is a practice that some Iranian young people have chosen to escape the constraints of traditional and formal marriage ceremonies in order to live together. In this form of cohabitation, the marriage is not registered in official offices and is based on the agreement of two people.
The issue of white marriage has caused concern among Iranian authorities in recent years. Officials do not consider this type of marriage to be religiously valid. Now Mohammad Eslami has expressed concern about the effects of white marriage on fertility rates, saying: “In white marriages, people usually do not have children and lose the opportunity to have offspring.”
He emphasized that if the number of people having white marriages increases, its negative impact on the overall fertility rate would be greater.
The technical deputy of the population health office at the Ministry of Health said that in white marriages, due to the couple’s avoidance of having children, the appropriate age for fertility is also lost, and depending on how long this process continues, individuals face greater challenges.”
According to him, after some time when these people decide to marry and have children, they face increased age and fertility problems at an older age, and in some cases, because they have passed the appropriate age, they do not have children.
Mohammad Esmail Motlaq, director general of the population health, family and schools office at the Ministry of Health, also said that “our duty is to promote healthy marriage, and we work in this field on marriages that have been registered.”
Referring to the fact that this office is ready to provide counseling to those seeking white marriage, he said that this type of marriage causes disorder in people’s health.
This official also emphasized that there are no statistics on white marriages available.
In September 2014, Siavash Shahryar, director general of social and cultural affairs at Tehran’s governorate, announced a plan called “Promoting Sustainable Family” to counter “white marriage” that was prepared based on population policies announced by the Leader of the Islamic Republic.
Source: Radio Zamane
