Marriage and family ties in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) are undergoing profound changes. While traditions persist, young people now marry later, fewer cousin marriages occur, and family dissolution is rising. These shifts, Mohammad Jalal Abbasi-Shavazi and Meimanat Hossein-Chavoshi note, signal demographic and cultural transformations shaped by education, economic uncertainty, conflict, and ideational change.
In a recently published article (Abbasi-Shavazi and Hosseini-Chavoshi 2025), we showed that the average age at marriage is rising across the MENA region. In countries like Tunisia and Lebanon, women increasingly marry in their mid-to-late 20s, a marked shift from previous decades. In other countries in the region such as Iran, the average age at marriage for women rose by about four years over three decades, from 19.7 years in 1976 to 23.4 in 2011. However, it declined slightly thereafter, due to the period increase in the number of marriages for a large number of post-revolutionary baby-boom cohorts entering the marriage market (Hosseini-Chavoshi et al. 2024).
Nevertheless, the increase in age at marriage in the region coexists with persistent child marriage. The UNICEF global database reports that, still recently, about 15% of women aged 20–24 across the MENA region had married before age 18, and 2% before age 15. Country-level disparities are stark: while only 2% of women in Tunisia marry before age 18, the figure rises to 32% for women in Yemen (Figure 1).
The contradiction between increasing legal age at marriage and actual underage unions reflects the limited impact of legislation (Rashad, 2015) when cultural norms, poverty, and insecurity dominate. In conflict-affected areas such as Syria, Yemen, and Iraq, fears for girls’ safety and family honor often drive early marriage.
From cousins to companions: evolving marriage patterns
Historically, arranged marriages and consanguineous marriages have been hallmarks of the MENA family formation system. In some countries, up to half of all marriages were between first cousins. These unions reinforced family ties, simplified dowry negotiations, and increased marriage stability (El Goundali et al. 2022).
But change is underway. Increasing levels of education, particularly for females, and the movement of younger generations from hometowns to big cities for higher education and work have provided the opportunity for both young women and men to find partners outside of their kin network and to adopt modern types of marriage arrangements. Rising female education (Figure 2), urban migration, and development of new ideas through media and social networks are challenging traditional norms. Many young people now choose their own partners. In capital cities like Tehran, “white marriages” (cohabitation without official registration) are quietly spreading despite strong religious disapproval and legal obstacles (Golchin and Safari 2017).
These trends suggest that education acts as both a structural and ideational force (Yount and Rashad 2008), empowering women to delay marriage, reject kinship-based arrangements, and seek different life course trajectories.
Fragile marriages: the rise of divorce
Divorce has traditionally been uncommon in Islamic countries and in the MENA region, but available information (Table 1) shows that divorce rates are on the rise across the region. In Egypt, the rate increased from 0.9 to 2.3 per 1,000 population between 2004 and 2020, and it almost doubled over the same period in Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Notably, many divorces occur within the first few years of marriage. In Palestine and Qatar, more than half of divorces happen in the first two years. Marrying young, economic stress, limited spousal choice, and incompatibility are key factors. As arranged marriages decline and individualism rises, expectations for emotional intimacy and autonomy may take precedence over traditional support systems.
What lies ahead?
Marriage in the MENA region remains nearly universal, but the meaning and structure of marriage are shifting. Later marriage, rising divorce, singlehood, and the emergence of new partnership forms point to a demographic transition in the family life course. Labor migration and restrictive reunification policies have fostered long-distance unions and altered traditional marriage norms.
Yet these changes are uneven. Political and religious institutions continue to shape family formation, often resisting change. Meanwhile, women’s higher education has not always translated into greater labor market participation and economic independence, with ambiguous effects on age at marriage (Krafft and Assaad, 2020).
Governments in Iran and the Arab countries of Qatar, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia have responded with pro-marriage campaigns and financial incentives. But such efforts may have limited success if they fail to address deeper social and economic transformations. As younger generations seek greater agency in family life, the future of partnering in the MENA region will likely diverge further from traditional scripts.
References
Abbasi-Shavazi, MJ., Hosseini-Chavoshi, M. 2025. Family change and partnering in the Middle East and North Africa, In D. Mortelmans, L. Bernardi & B. Perelli-Harris (Eds.), Research Handbook on Partnering across the Life Course, Series “Research Handbooks in Sociology” (Edward Elgar Publishing), pp: 316-331.
El Goundali K, Chebabe M, Zahra Laamiri F, Hilali A. 2022. The Determinants of Consanguineous Marriages among the Arab Population: A Systematic Review. Iranian Journal of Public Health, 51(2): 253-265. doi: 10.18502/ijph.v51i2.8679.
Golchin, M., and Safari, S. 2017. Tehran metropolis and the emergence of symptoms of new form of the male-female relationships: The Study of the contexts, processes, and consequences of cohabitation. Iranian Cultural Research Quarterly, 10(1): pp. 29-57. doi: 10.22631/ijcr.2017.332
Hosseini-Chavoshi, M., McDonald, P., Abbasi-Shavazi, MJ. 2024. Explaining recent fertility trends in Iran: The predominance of marriage and the economy, Asian Population Studies, doi: 10.1080/17441730.2024.2437354
Krafft, C., and Assaad, R. 2020. Employment’s Role in Enabling and Constraining Marriage in the Middle East and North Africa. Demography, 57(6): 2297–2325. doi: 10.1007/s13524-020-00932-1
Rashad, H. 2015. The tempo and intensity of marriage in the Arab region: Key challenges and their implications. DIFI Family Research and proceedings, 2. http://doi.org/10.5339/difi.2015.2
Yount, K., Hoda R. (eds). 2008. Family in the Middle East-Ideational Changes in Egypt, Iran and Tunisia, Routledge, London and New York.
Sources figures
Source figure 1 – UNICEF global databases, 2022, based on DHS, MICS, and other national surveys. Updated MAY 2022.
Source figure 2 – Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital (2023). Wittgenstein Centre Data Explorer Version 3.0
Source table 1 – Euromonitor International (2014)