TEHRAN – In the West, simultaneously with modernity and after that, based on feminist teachings and in the name of defending women's rights, family functions and the position of wife and mother have undergone extensive changes.

In all human societies and throughout history, the family is considered a sacred and valuable system and has had a stable position. Unfortunately, the Western lifestyle and the culture that dominated these societies over the decades have led to the deterioration of the family situation and weakened its foundation. 

Undoubtedly, the new Western lifestyle is one of the signs of the disintegration of this society. The indicators of family breakup can be seen in the loss of the traditional roles of men and women as the heads of the family, the loss of mutual respect between children and parents, and finally the destruction of the most important social system, the family.

Due to the change of lifestyle in the West and the exposure of people to a high volume of promiscuity, the desire to marry and start a family has generally decreased in Western societies. Since the West is currently suffering from economic pressures and psychological-moral identitylessness, the age of marriage and family formation has increased.

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei in this regard in a meeting with the panegyrists of the Ahlul Bayt on the occasion of the birthday anniversary of Hazrat Fatimah az-Zahra (PBUH) said, “I would like to stress that you should focus on the issue of the family at this point in time. The enemy – not the enemy of Iran and the Revolution, but rather the enemy of humanity – has decided to destroy the foundation of family among human beings. Family is a divine tradition. The enemy of humanity – in other words, international capitalism and Zionism – has decided to destroy family since approximately a hundred years ago. And they succeeded in certain places. They managed to do so in those places where the people had drifted away from God…” (February 26, 2019)

It is natural for people who are sexually promiscuous before marriage to cheat on their spouses after marriage. A large part of the young Western generation, instead of having a stable relationship, experience various temporary love affairs, and this causes them to be unable to maintain themselves in a stable and committed relationship. As a result, they turn to relationships outside the family, and this issue itself causes the family's position to weaken even more.

“These hard and late marriages, characterized by the small number of births, and what is referred to as “white marriages” – this ugly term which represents the darkest kinds of marriages – are all promoted in order to destroy the family foundation. The propagation of lustfulness and the destruction of modesty and sexual reserve are some of the enemy’s plans in the present time,” Ayatollah Khamenei noted. (February 26, 2019)

Cohabitation is another manifestation of moral corruption in western society, which can be seen as a direct result of changing the lifestyle and its definition. This phenomenon is one of the accelerating factors of the collapse of the family in the West.

Due to the weakening of the position of the church and the religiosity of the young generation in Western society, moral and religious criteria have also been neglected.

“Those who want to infiltrate a country or society, and control the culture of that society by imposing their own culture on them, will try to weaken the foundations of the family in that society, as one important strategy. This has been done in many countries, unfortunately. Men are made irresponsible, and women are made immoral,” Ayatollah Khamenei underlined in one of his speeches on March 9, 1998.

Another factor in the collapse of the family system in the Western world is the promotion and spread of corrupt ideas in these societies, including feminism. 

Feminism, which appeared at first to assert women's rights and avoid seeing them as a tool, after a while turned into an approach that was against both men and the family. The extremism of feminists caused abnormal misogynist or supremacy-seeking thoughts to emerge among some men's societies.
“…one of the factors that has undermined the Western ideological system and its spiritual domination is the increasing moral and spiritual crisis in the West. A clear sign of this crisis is that a feeling of absurdity, nothingness, desperation, and psychological insecurity has been engendered in all Western people, particularly in youth. The foundation of the family has shaken in the West. And these are the consequences.

Western orientation towards the issue of women has caused intellectuals, thinkers, and broadminded personalities to seriously question feminism which was formed tens of years ago. These intellectuals and thinkers believed that feminism was a trap for women and that it created many obstacles for them. This is a long story,” the Leader of the Islamic Revolution said in a meeting with the chairman and members of the Assembly of Experts. (September 4, 2014)