“Forced Wedding”: Modern Writers and Criticism of Cultural Structures on the Axis of the Right to Choose in Marriage (1287 AH – 1304 AP)

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Associate Professor, Department of History, Lorestan University, Khorramabad, Iran

Abstract
Criticizing the cultural structure of “marriage” in the traditional linguistic sphere and providing a new definition of it was the concern of a number of modernist writers of Iran during the Qajar era. These authors recognized new writing formats as an efficient tool for this purpose. The focal issue of the upcoming research, which is written with the approach of cultural history and focusing on “language” as a tool for cultural change and modernization, is the analysis of the attempt of these modernists to break into olden cultural structures based on marriage and the foundational criticism of these structures by focusing on “the right to choose”. By writing works in emerging literary formats, modern writers introduced into critical literature the issue of marriage and emphasizing the choice as a “right”; In this context, the “translation” factor had a central contribution; sphere of thought of Iran, influenced by the life of modernists in modern environments such as Europe, Caucasus and Istanbul, was exposed to the translation/localization of the works of prominent figures in the field of critical literature to make it easier to pass this difficult path through the translation. The results of the analysis of the content of these texts indicate that the critical representation of traditional marriage has been one of the main aspects of this critical attitude. Trying to break into the accepted authority of the family as a cultural unit in the classic model of marriage, criticizing structures such as honor/shame and cultural units that dominate the category of choice such as relatives and criticizing the dominance of the financial/status attitude over this right, are among the most important components of this activity. The second aspect of this approach is looking at the positive function and proposing an alternative cultural model emerging from modernity based on the right to choose and emphasizing the individual's role in marriage.

Keywords


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  • Receive Date 12 August 2024
  • Revise Date 09 October 2024
  • Accept Date 12 October 2024
  • Publish Date 22 December 2023