The nuclear family seems a fleeting arrangement, one that a society eventually advances beyond, remaking the idea with more complex entanglements, like a welter of telephone wires that cross and recross one another yet work just fine. Iran’s young are rejecting early marriage (and sometimes all marriage), and the conservative government is reacting with the expected ham-fisted response. From an Economist report:

AT A loss to explain why most youngsters are delaying marriage or altogether shunning the idea of a happy union, Iran’s government is taking action. In Hamedan province, a senior ayatollah recently warned unmarried public workers to find a spouse within a year or risk losing their jobs. A gentler approach, announced in January, is the launch of a matchmaker website which, the government hopes, could lead to as many as 100,000 marriages.

For those who fret about such things, there is much to stoke concern. The traditional family unit is falling apart in Iran, as elsewhere: around one in three marriages in the capital, Tehran, fails.

The Shia form of Islam practiced in Iran allows sigheh, or temporary marriage that can last for as little as an hour. The government would prefer more durable pairings, however.

In any case, under-30s, who make up 55% of Iran’s population of 77m, seem far more interested in brief flings than marriage. Hence some 300 “immoral” Western-style dating websites have sprung up of late. Unable to close them all down, the state’s moral guardians have decided to turn matchmaker instead.

But its website, which launches later this month, is unlikely to make much impression beyond religious neighbourhoods where, in any case, there is little premarital nookie. “I would never put my name on a government-run site… no matter how desperate I felt,” says Farhad, a 32-year-old who has been single for the past three years.•