House with Open Door (book)

House with Open Door

Author	Kameel Ahmady
Genre	Research study
Publisher	English and Persian: Mehri Publication Kurdish and Farsi: Avaye Buf
Publication date	2019

House with Open Door is a book by Kameel Ahmady that examines the social phenomenon of cohabitation, called "white marriage" in Iran, in which couples live together without legally marrying.

The research was conducted in Tehran, Mashhad, and Isfahan, three major Iranian cities. Supervised by Ahmady, a British Iranian anthropologist and researcher, the book investigates the prevalence and nature of white marriage. Field research conducted between 2017 and 2018 forms the basis of the book, which was first published in English and Persian by Mehri Publishing House in 2020.

House with Open Door sheds light on an understudied aspect of family and relationships in Iran's rapidly modernizing society.^[1][2][3] Through research and analysis, several key factors that have led to the proliferation of white marriages in urban areas were identified.^[4] These include environmental factors such as economic conditions, social structure, and legal and formal frameworks, as well as intervening factors like family conditions, weak surveillance, and living in migration.

The book also highlights the emergence of value and normative changes in people's lifestyles and strategic actions as a central phenomenon driving the spread of white marriage. The consequences of white marriage were found to cause a loss of gender stereotypes, increase in freedom of choice, reluctance to formal marriage, social rejection, lack of support, and fear of prosecution.^[5][6][7][8]