An Outsider-Insider’s Perspective of Family Life in Iran
I am not Iranian. But I am part of an Iranian family.
Marrying into another family always is quite a strange thing, I guess. Of course, everybody does it. But the feeling of becoming a member of a ‘second’ family quite awkward. Wouldn’t you agree with me?
Well… being in the process of marrying into another family from a completely different cultural background is an even stranger thing. Especially if you are the ‘foreigner’ who lives in the country of your spouse.
You are a member of the family just like everybody else. At the same time, you are quite different. You are the awkward family member who always stands out a little bit.
From the beginning, my partner’s family has welcomed me with an open heart.
Still, it must’ve been a shock for them when their daughter told them that she is in a relationship with a German guy. They come from one of Iran’s most conservative cities— Mashhad — which is home to the Imam Reza Shrine.
For Shiite Muslims, it is the holiest location within Iran and hosts over 20 million pilgrims every single year.
According to Iranian tradition, the groom’s family should visit the wife’s family home as a first step to initiate the marriage process. Plus, it is only a brief visit to start getting to know each other.
In our case, that was obviously not possible. So, her family, who are actually quite conservative, decided to do something which is actually unthinkable in Iran. They let me stay in their home for 2 weeks the first time we met each other.
Me alone.
They knew that traveling to Mashhad for me wasn’t easy, and that it would be expensive for me to stay in a hotel just to visit them. And since they wanted the best for their daughter, they decided to be flexible about the cultural traditions. Even so they were not comfortable with it at all.
From the beginning, her family was really kind to me. The parents told me that I would be just like their other children — and I could feel that they meant it.
I have a love-hate relationship with Iranian family life. Firstly, it is an amazing feeling to be part of an Iranian family. The degree to which Iranian families are acting as one single unit is astonishing. The support they are displaying to one another is absolutely amazing. And the amount of time they are spending together gives you a real feeling of community.
But as beautiful as all this is, it brings a lot of responsibility with it, as well as a lack of personal freedom.
When Iranian family members live in the same city, they spend nearly all of their time together. For example, I have absolutely no idea how my partner gets any of her work done when she is with her family. Her mum would constantly sit next to her and keep talking about all different kinds of topics.
As somebody who is not used to this, and as somebody who absolutely believes in focusing on just a single thing at a time, I might as well not even try to work under those circumstances.
When Iranian family members do not live in the same city, they are constantly expected to make contact with one another. And they will spend a lot of time discussing about how they can live in the same location once again.
One thing me and my foreign friends are baffled about is what Iranian families talk about every single day.
Seriously, when you spend most of your time together, what do you have to say to one another? It’s a mystery to me. But basically, it seems to involve describing to each other every single thing you did today in an detailed manner as possible.
It also probably involves a lot of talking about distant family members. As Iranian family members are huge (my partner has more than 70 cousins), there is a lot to talk about in that regard.
Who got married? Who is doing well in school? Who is having problems with what? And many more things to talk about.
But more than the fact that there is constant contact between one another, constant responsibility for one another is also a big part of Iranian family life.
When a family member, be he or she not so distant, has any problems, the others are there to help in any way possible. Whether it is financially, emotionally, or by actively getting involved in the solution of the problem.
There are also a lot of traditions and customs to fulfill. For instance, the process of getting married in Iran is insanely difficult.
The husband — even if he is a university student — is expected to provide everything right from the start: a fully furnished apartment, a car, and everything else that is necessary for life.
Furthermore, the costs for weddings in Iran are insane. Distant family members are essentially pushing each other’s expectations of how a decent wedding should look like higher and higher. One cousin got this for his wedding? Right, we need it to!
Plus, since the families are huge, the number of attendees is very high, too. I guess 200 people would be considered a small wedding in Iran.
This is not to forget that there is a lot of customs around the marriage process. A lot of presents involved. A lot of different gatherings between the two different families. A lot of discussions and a lot of decisions.
Marriage, in Iran, really is a marriage between two families, not between two individuals.
One thing I noticed about family life in Iran is how little, in comparison to Germany at least, the individual has to say.
Even a married couple still is expected to at least make their decisions together with their parents. And the parents certainly have a large say in pretty much any decision that the couple is making as well.
Often times, this can be quite complicated. Since marriage in Iran is between two families, not just two individuals, the expectations of both families can be quite far apart from another. Then, the couple is torn between the expectations of both sides and will struggle to come to any proper conclusion, since either way they will offend their family.
My feeling is that the ‘family elders’ will somehow always consider their children as immature, regardless of how old they become.
Life experience definitely is respected a lot in Iran. Plus, a lot of authority comes with being the head of the family. Therefore, any major decision that you make should be discussed among the family as a whole, where the most important decision maker would be the oldest men.
These things are causing somewhat… complicated… feelings for me. I am a person who places a very high degree of importance on independence. As someone who has been living abroad for about 7 years now, I have made most of my decisions on my own accord.
Sure, I have consulted with my parents about it, but in the end the decision has always been my own to make.
The Iranian way, in that regard, is somehow making me feel like a child. For Iranians, however, this is not the case at all.
It is a normal part of life and everybody respects that. Making sure that your parents are happy with your decisions is a really important part of most Iranian’s way of thinking.
On the other side of the coin, you are almost never alone. In almost everything you do, you are within a community. Your close family. Your cousins, uncles, aunts… and their friends. The community is at the center of life. And that is a really beautiful and warm feeling.
Although for me it is sometimes too much, as I am more of a loner (writer…), I do appreciate this community feeling very much.
I don’t think that I can ever fully adopt this Iranian way of living and spending the large majority of your time in the company of family and friends. After all, I am a very career-focused person and I love spending time alone on my laptop while writing. But still, I also appreciate the amount of quality time that families in Iran spend in togetherness.
More than that, there is also the incredible amount of support that you can constantly feel. One family member’s problem is everybody’s problem. And everybody will do whatever is in their power to solve that problem for each other.
Of course, my family back in Germany were supporting me in every way they could, too.
But there is a significant difference in the perception between how support works in both countries. Although I am not sure that I completely understand it yet, let me give it a try at least.
In Germany, problems are first and foremost their own. Firstly, you try to get advice from your family. Then, when you absolutely can not find a solution, you will turn to your family members for support. The goal here is to teach you independence and the ability to solve problems on your own.
In Iran, however, problems are always perceived to be a ‘family thing’. Right from the start, family members will do everything they can to make sure that you solve your problems. Often, they will throw their whole energy into making sure that whatever problem you are facing gets solved as soon as possible, and they throw their resources together in order to make sure things get done.
Families all around the world support each other, but the way in which this happens can be quite different.
To summarize, here are my key observations.:
Families in Iran…
… operate as a single unit, not a collection of individuals.
… place a high premium on tradition and customs
… make all important decisions together as a collective unit
… throw their resources together to solve any family members’ problems
… want to spend most of their time together
… acknowledge a large degree of authority in the family elders
… merge into a single whole upon a couple’s marriage
Lastly, I am really interested to hear from you if you have any further insights into Iranian family life. I myself am only in the beginning of my journey of discovering what it is really like, so I am keen to hear any other observations that you may have made.
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You can also listen to this podcast in which Christian Hoeferle from The Culture Mastery interviewed me on my life abroad with a particular focus on Iran.
Have a lovely day,
Tim Rettig
