Culmination of Law

Culmination of Law

Article 1041 of the Iranian Civil Code: A New Interpretation in the Light of Public Law

Document Type : Original Article

Author
Mohammad Mansouri Boroujeni
Assistant Professor, Department of Law, Faculty of Administrative Sciences and Economics, University of Isfahan. Isfahan, Iran
10.22034/thdad.2023.2006359.2498
Abstract
Many practitioners and commentators of the legal order construe Article 1041 of the Iranian Civil Code wrongly that prescribes the marriage of minors, so that the natural guardian of a male/female child can offer or accept the marriage contract on his/her behalf. However, a textual inference of the Iranian Civil Code, specifically, the 2002 amendment of Article 1041, and its relationship with the rules of capacity, puberty and majority in the Code shows otherwise. The Article is only about the restriction of marriage for a temporary period that begins with the puberty of a woman or a man (according to Article 1210 of the Iranian Civil Code) and continues until the minimum legal age for marriage specified in this Article. Marriage in this period requires following the procedure that is mentioned in the Article. Article 1041 does not prescribe the marriage of minors, nor does it allow marriage to be concluded without the consent of the original parties of the contract. Although disobedience of the procedure of Article 1041 doesn't make marriages concluded after puberty invalid; marriage before puberty is void ab initio. We argued that analyzing the natural guardian as a private institution, and neglecting the role of secondary titles in legislation has made our interpretation abandoned. This article is a research using the legal doctrinal method that utilized the techniques of review of commentators' opinions, literal interpretation and construing a code as a whole.
Keywords
child marriage
marriage by natural guardian
marriage age
public law

Subjects

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Culmination of Law
Volume 10, Issue 4
Spring 2025
Pages 113-140