Engage In or Refrain From? A Qualitative Exploration of Premarital Sexual Relations Among Female College Students in Tehran

Abstract

This study explored the factors that educated young Iranian women consider when they decide whether to have premarital sex. Using a purposive sampling method, 30 in-depth interviews were conducted with female college students in both government and private universities in Tehran in 2005–2006. The respondents included unmarried women who had experienced sexual relations, unmarried women who had abstained, and married women. Young women’s considerations for premarital sex included (1) marriage meaning and motivations; (2) compliance with family values and expectations; (3) perceived gender and social norms of premarital sex; (4) importance of religiosity; and (5) sexual knowledge and self-efficacy. Marriage meaning and motivation seem to be the central pillar in the complex decision to engage in or refrain from premarital sex among female college students. These considerations have theoretical implications for understanding premarital relationships and sex in a conservative setting. Finally, some shifts are occurring in the meaning of marriage and sexual mores among educated young women in Iran; these changes are discussed.

Acknowledgments

We appreciate the support of National Population Studies and Comprehensive Management Institute for this article. The inception of this paper occurred when the first author spent a sabbatical period at Malmo University in Sweden in September and October 2015. The second author suggested the main concept of the paper, and the third author supervised the project for a doctoral thesis and the study’s conduct in 2005.

Notes

¹ Numbers in parentheses are the number of times each subtheme arose across all interviews. Because a subtheme might appear multiple times during a single interview, the number shown is sometimes greater than the number of participants.