Region | Iran
Iran parliament body scraps polygamy proposal
Iran's parliamentary committee has thrown out a proposal that activists feared would have encouraged polygamy in country, according to media reports on Tuesday.
- Agencies
- Published: 15:41 September 9, 2008
Tehran: Iran's parliamentary committee has thrown out a proposal that activists feared would have encouraged polygamy in country, according to media reports on Tuesday.
Activists have lobbied against the bill on families, which they said would have allowed a man to take a new wife without the consent of the first one.
The bill also covered other family issues. Parliament is expected to vote on the amended version.
Newspapers quoted committee chairman Ali Shahrokhi as saying it had removed two articles which had angered activists: one dealing with polygamy and another on taxing money the husband agrees to pay his wife under a marriage contract.
Under Iran's Islamic law, men can have up to four wives but many Iranians see polygamy as unacceptable and it is not common.
Shahrokhi said families would have been "exposed to collapse" under the proposal on polygamy.
"We did not see this article as logical and we deleted it," Etemad daily quoted him as saying. "Iranian families and women should know that we are not indifferent to their issues."
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