Get married or lose your job?

Question

Single workers at one of Iran's major state-owned companies have been told to marry by September or face being fired, Iranian newspapers have reported.

The Pars Special Economic Energy Zone Company employs thousands of people, mostly young men, on Iran's Gulf coast.

Being married is a job requirement, a directive from the company is reported as saying.

Correspondents say the ruling appears to be an attempt to reduce the number of prostitutes working in the area...

"As being married is one of the criteria of employment, we are announcing for the last time that all the female and male colleagues have until September 21 to go ahead with this important and moral religious duty."

Whole article at:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7447227.stm

Which are your thoughts on this?

Answer 1

Why would I give a c**p what happens to Iranian workers??

It's probably a friggen nuclear weapons factory or some biological weapons lab anyhow.

Answer 2

Iran is an oppressive regime.

By this move i imagine that they are concerned with keeping the numbers up with efficient breeding habits. more people more tax payers more military strength. it is no secret that the leaders within islam see our replacement rate reproduction habits as the key to their eventual world domination.

look at our society, you can't blame them for wanting to keep family values in place.

Answer 3

can't they think of another way to prevent prostitution? it can boggle the mind to see how narrow-minded humans can be and then to impose such limited thinking onto its citizens.

Answer 4

both

Answer 5

I believe that is oppression to force single workers to get married.. if they don't want to.. I would not work for that company..... I would want the freedom to choose when I marry .. when I am ready and whom I marry.... not for the sake of keeping a job.. that sounds like slavery.... oppression....xx

Answer 6

Though I'm not from the Middle East, I've grown up in a similar culture in India, specially when it comes to marriage. In the west, marriage is a personal choice; but here, it is, as the BBC article says, 'A moral and religious obligation'.

        That's why you would see the arranged marriage system here. Parents feel it to be their duty to get their children married once they become of 'marriageable age'. You would rarely see a woman above 25 and still unmarried and a man above 30 yet to start a family. People make hurtful remarks at your spinster/bachelorhood. Secondly, even the youth, atleast the majority that I know, don't want to go through the whole emotional tension of finding a perfect partner. I mean the whole dating game, which may end up in a lot of heartache.

         Also, marriage is considered obligatory because seeing a lot of lovers and casual s*x (which may take place if one chooses not to marry) are considered to bring shame upon one's family. Those who have read about honour killings must be knowing this. Plus it is believed that without marriage and family, one would be left with no responsibility; thus leading to a lifestyle filled with all the evils ie. alcoholism, gambling, casual s*x, criminal attitude because as they say, 'An empty mind is a devil's workshop'.

         The institutiton of marriage in our society is thought to be something that can keep a person busy enough not to turn destructive. Hence you won't find any single mothers or fathers (by choice) here. Marriage is thought to make one complete. It's also a status symbol. Bachelors are looked down upon, are rarely invited to parties and so on.

         I know the rule is completely outrageous but that's how I think those folks justify it. I would, however have sued my employers had they done so!

Answer 7

You are missing the obvious.

In the Middle East, the marriage ceremony is a women's ticket to a lifetime of security. These women will lobby the gov't to enforce the marriage rituals which clearly favor women.

Answer 8

Of course it is ridiculous this would never fly in most modern countries.  Marriage (if so moral) should be about love, commitment and companionship...not keeping a job.  I wonder how many people find another job.

Answer 9

Wow, Iran is really a narrowed minded society.

If i was one of them, I would quite, and get a visa to the U.S. where single people are appreciated and treated like humans.

There's no way I'm going to get married for any other reason besides love.

Answer 10

The Pope about four years ago made the announcement that a growing population of older single men in France (or Italy?) would be excommunicated if they didn't get married and breed like good Catholics.  Here in the U.S. just in the 1990's, I was told quite directly by my CEO/boss that I couldn't move up in that company unless I got married.  The SAME day across the street at a major medical school where I was in the family nurse practitioner program, I was told quite directly by my mentor that I couldn't move up in academia / research if I GOT married.  Too funny.  Traditionally, female maids were fired upon announcement of marriage plans.  Same for many secretarial / clerical careers for women.  

I suspect what's happening in Iran related to this story you've asked about isn't the same "labor" based-issue as in the examples I gave above.  It's a "religious" based-issue just like our problem here in the U.S. with Christians.  It's called "Dominionism", which "describes, in several distinct ways, a tendency among some conservative politically-active Christians to seek influence or control over secular civil government through political action — aiming either at a nation governed by Christians or a nation governed by a conservative Christian understanding of biblical law".  

Those Muslims freaks aren't harassing their male employees about marriage over some business formula that tells them, "Married employees are more profitable over the long-run for our company".  They're harassing their male employees about their "moralities" and are demanding that those male employees behave as their holy book tells them to behave.  That's EXACTLY what Christian Evangelicals and people like Phylis Schalafy and her Eagle Forum foundation fight to accomplish here in the U.S., the right to demand that everyone ELSE in this land behave as those freaks interpret their holy book to mean for them to force everyone else to behave like.  I mean, that's their CAUSE, to force it on the rest of us.  Fascists with an urge to thump a holy book need to have their holy books shoved up their a@ses.

Answer 11

It's all going to depend on what matters most to the employees.  Personally I'd be looking for another job unless I had a prospective marriage partner already lined up.

Answer 12

Since when will marriage stop prostitution? Look at any major city in the United States, most of the "Johns" arrested by police in stings are married men. Also, a percentage of prostitutes are married. This ruling in Iran is a waste of time and money. The only way to enforce it is to have bed checks every night for every employee.

Bill

Answer 13

I would try to find another job. There's no way I would get married just because a job said to do so. It shouldn't be a job requirement to have any say in people getting married. Marriage is a person decision and has no effect on a person's job performance.

Answer 14

Yeah, Iran has very different values to us.  Who am I to say if it is wrong or right?  If they don't like it, they leave the job.  Don't have much choice, do they?

Answer 15

Could it be that they see families as the bread and butter of life.

Or is it g**s and single mothers.

Answer 16

Do the prostitutes have to get married too?