Father Knows Best: Iran

Seventy eight years after abandoning his two year old daughter, the Iranian government is looking for the father of an 80 year old bride-to-be in hopes that the deadbeat dad might give her the permission necessary to tie the knot.

[...] Iran's laws require a father to give permission before a daughter can marry.

Now the lovestruck octogenarian has asked a Tehran court to establish whether her father, who abandoned her when she was two, is dead or alive so her wedding can go ahead.

The legal obstacle came to light when Setareh and her betrothed, Jamshid, tried to tie the knot at a registrar's office, only to be told she needed written agreement or proof of death of her father.

What other evidence would be necessary to prove to the world that Iran and Islam have little respect for the standing of women in society? A woman presumably never reaches the age of accountability. She never reaches a point in her life when her emotional maturity would allow her to live outside of the control of a man, even one proven to be an unfit father to begin with.

Her plight is an example of what campaigners say is systematic discrimination against women under Iranian law.

But the state-linked Iranian Women's News Agency said women need their father's permission to protect them from "emotional" marriage decisions.

Robert Spencer gets the h/t over at Dhimmi Watch and adds:

Yes, we can't have a lonely and bereft octogenarian woman being "emotional." It would be...un-Islamic!