ABSTRACT
This chapter draws on interviews with several Zoroastrian couples living in the UK, the United States, and Europe, some of whom have quite recently left Iran. The purpose of such discussions with these mostly professional couples across three generations during the first half of the 2020s was to determine their choices and experiences of gender roles and family relationships. Zoroastrian tradition and custom have always framed equality of women as a marker that distinguishes the community’s identity, and in most Zoroastrian households a partnership between the spouses is visibly present, and sons are supposed to absorb this ethos. One of the key findings has been the erosion of the importance of Honour and Shame considerations, and a prioritising of the individuals’ own desires over pressures from their families. It was additionally noted that little change in attitude and ritual pertaining to marriage seems to have taken place since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. This might be explained by the rapid changes that took place between the 1950s and 1979, when outside influences began to noticeably change Iranian societal attitudes with the advent of films, TV, and music from the West, corresponding to when entrenched traditions around marriage began to change. Such changes were particularly marked towards the last years of the Pahlavi era, when receiving an education in the West became a well-established custom among urbanised Zoroastrians, and divorce became an accepted fact of life.
