Yet ideologies—whether religious or political—may be powerful tools for changing or preserving family and household forms. (Mary Mclntosh, Chapter 8 in this volume, analyses this in relation to the UK.) Afshar (1987), for example, notes how the Iranian state referenced Islamic values when introducing new legislation governing marriage and the family following the 1978 revolution, designed to counter what was regarded as the western orientation of the previous regime, and specifically its legislative reforms. The legal age of marriage for females was reduced from 18 years to 13 years.
Polygamy was reintroduced and former divorce and custody provisions were overturned, with men being given the virtually exclusive right to divorce at will. Afshar (1987:75-6) argues that the new regime appropriated marriage and defined it as central to a revolutionary, Islamic morality. Marriage was depicted as not just desirable but essential for young women, with the unmarried at one point being equated with terrorists.
In other cases where Islam is less politicized or the state more secularized, or where social forces are differently arranged, the impact of Islamic law and conventions may take a different form. But Islam, as well as other religions, may still exert a strong influence on norms of family and household formation.