Research Background
In order to study kinship structures, especially kinship structures in myths, Iranian researchers have benefited a lot from Strauss theories. For instance, Rouh-Al-Amini (1991) carries a study on social marriage structures in Shahnameh based on structural anthropology and Strauss theory, even though there is not an emphatic position of exchange theory in his article. Sattari and his colleagues (2006) have benefited from structural anthropology in their analysis of kinship in Iranian myths, and their study emphasizes on binary oppositions in Strauss’s thinking. In this article, different ways of choosing spouse based on binary oppositions are well shown, although the topic of exchange and merchandising women have not been mentioned.
Apart from studies based on anthropological theories, there are other studies which have been investigating different kinds of marriages without considering any particular theory. For instance, Bagheri and Mirzaiyan (2016) have studied the reasons to get married, obstacles along the way and characteristics of men and women in marriages, and tried to find the ways that marriages have been established in folktales, without having any particular anthropological framework.
Theoretical framework, goals, and questions
Folktales are rich sources for studying cultural and social characteristics of societies. Beyond entertainment, they indirectly transmit values and cultural beliefs to children and young adults. Marriage ceremonies are important part of every culture and they appear boldly in folktales.
Claude Levi-Strauss, the father of structural anthropology, claims that all marriages are based on exchange. From his point of view, men from different groups would hand over women from their group to men in other groups and instead, receive women from them, and that is how marriage took place and eventually the core of social life was shaped. He also points out that women were not only traded for other women, but also for land, wealth, food and even respect. In his opinion, marriage follows the exogamy rules and that is exactly due to those rules that communication between today’s men and great societies is guaranteed, otherwise through endogamy rules, we would be witnessing just close families and the end of social life as we know it (Levi-Strauss, 1969, pp. 478-480).
This article is aimed at posing the question that based on which exchanges, marriage in Iranian folktales takes place? What were women exchanged for? And how and under which concepts the nature of exchanges in marriage got hidden?
This study has been carried out after investigating more than a hundred tale and different marriages taken place in Iranian tales written by Sobhi Mohtadi, Samad Behrangi, Anjavi Shirazi and Mashdi Galin Khanum stories. The study reveals the exchange basis of marriage and tries to analyze the fact that despite all the huge differences in ceremonies, characters and social status, in a lot of cases the structure is the same where the primary core is based on a trade.
Conclusion
As Strauss has stated, the social structuralism in different societies follows a common set of rules and regulations, exchange marriage rules being one of them. Analyzing Iranian tales shows that despite the diversity in exchange rules, they are present in most marriages. Women are traded for treatment, freedom, security, knowledge and education. Wealth too is a very obvious means of exchange in most tales. In some of the stories, women themselves have effective roles and set some conditions for their future spouses, but in most cases, they are treated as merchandise and are offered to other men by the men in their own tribe (usually the father). It is true that real life does not follow the patterns in tales, but the world of folktales is a reflector of the mind of narrators. Thus, it should be said that the exchange rules in marriage has become an accepted fact in Iranian mentality and the folklore is a clear reflection of it.
References
Levi-Strauss, C. (1969). The elementary structures of kinship (translated into English by J. Harle Bell and J. R. von Sturmer). Beacon Press.
