Iran International:

Maryam Sinaiee 

Tehran’s move to sharply limit a man’s liability for paying his wife mehriyeh—a gift of value promised at marriage—has triggered a fierce social debate, with critics warning that it tilts the legal balance further away from women.

On Wednesday, Iran’s parliament voted to cut the threshold for criminal enforcement from the long-standing ceiling of 110 gold coins, introduced in 2013, to just 14.

The measure passed as part of a broader bill to curb the criminalization of debt.

Legal scholar Mohsen Borhani was among the first to sound the alarm when the proposal surfaced earlier this year.

“Once again, a misogynistic bill is moving toward approval,” he posted on X, arguing that mehriyeh remains one of the few practical tools women have in a system where laws and practices heavily favor men.

Lawmakers, he wrote, should revise “all the reciprocal rights of spouses, not tilt the law to one side, and certainly not in a way that harms women.”

Mehriyeh, the inverse of dowry in Western traditions, is negotiated before marriage and legally treated as a debt. It becomes payable at divorce, on demand, or from the husband’s estate if he dies.

While it can take the form of money, property, or symbolic items, government-minted gold coins have become standard over the past few decades; amounts routinely reach hundreds of coins, each worth around $1,000.

Some conservatives inside parliament echoed that concern this week.

Lawmaker Sara Fallahi said the decision would alienate the public from religion “because it limits women’s rights in the name of Sharia.”

Supporters, including Mehrdad Lahouti, counter that more than 25,000 men have been jailed over unpaid mehriyeh and insist the reform will reduce imprisonment for debt.

For decades, criminal enforcement has been central to the function of mehriyeh: it gave women a swift and powerful remedy when husbands refused payment and acted as one of the few bargaining tools available in divorce or marital disputes.

Go to link