Ma`rifat Adyan

This study examines the legal and social structure of marriage and divorce in the Zoroastrian-Sasanian tradition, aiming to analyze its relationship with the status of women within the patriarchal system of this period. The central issue of the article is to elucidate how family law rules were formed in Pahlavi sources, particularly the Mādayān ī Hazār Dādestān, and how they reflect power, gender, and class dynamics. The research seeks to provide a historical and critical reexamination of the divorce system in Zoroastrian religious texts and to analyze the role of concepts such as guardianship, proxy marriage, and the institution of čakarī in reinforcing the Sasanian social order. The study employs a historical-analytical method, based on the analysis of primary sources (such as the Dēnkard, Pahlavi narratives, and legal texts). The findings indicate that, although in theory divorce required the consent of the woman, in practice, only women from higher social classes had legal agency. Furthermore, the complete dependence of women on their guardian or husband reduced their role to a function of the patriarchal structure, and divorce regulations primarily served to uphold the interests of men and the class system.