Change and the Iranian Family

Abstract

In the course of the last 50 years, socioeconomic changes have affected the family institution, and we are witnessing a gradual but continuous and decisive transformation of family structure varying in intensity among diverse social strata of the society. Nevertheless, the Iranian family has preserved many of its traditional functional aspects, the most important being its function as a support system. Most Iranian families (83%) are conjugal but have strong socioeconomic relations with their kinship network. The tayefeh is a social reality in villages even today. In cities, kinship groups have disappeared superficially, but family relations are means of entry into new family pressure groups. Members of the younger generation, though they would like to escape family supervision, submit to family relationships because they can hardly advance in their careers without kinship support. The old urban kinship groups (khanedan) have weakened, but new ones have emerged from the middle class. As soon as a person acquires high social status through advanced studies, etc., a web of relatives surrounds him and creates a new sociopolitical pressure group. In cities, immigrants of the same origin (hamvalayati) also gather and reorganise on the basis of common language, culture, and ethnicity. The main changes we can observe in this domain are that family relationship by blood has given way to family relationship by marriage and that although the role of family groups has not changed, its application is different nowadays. On the whole, the characteristics of the Iranian family today are symbolic of transition and maladjustment of values. The forces of change are wrestling with those of continuity, and the clash between tradition and modernity is very apparent.

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