CHN | News: "Women from the lower classes of society were deprived of many rights during the Sassanid era, a deprivation that can be traced in the rules of marriage and divorce at the time.

Sassanids wedded their daughters when they reached the age of 9 and their sons when they reached 15. Those ages were considered the perfect time of life, and it was believed that people would live at those when they were resurrected in heavens.

Noble women could reach the highest governmental positions. As such were Denak, mother of Yazdgerd II and mother of Hormoz III, Pouran and Azarmidokht, daughters of Khosro Parviz, were all among women who ruled as Queen of the Queens (lady of the ladies).

Traditionally, however, women from lower social classes were considered as some kind of possession, worth as much as a slave. Even that amount is believed to have been paid as a marriage payment.

There was no obligation for women to receive religious teachings. Women who opposed getting married were sentenced to death, a fate never considered for men in the same situation.

Divorce had its own regulations at the time: if a woman carried out sorcery rituals, her husband could divorce her; the same was true if the woman was infertile, had sexual relations with another man, did not carry out her responsibilities properly, or did not wish to sleep with her husband. If the girl just reached her puberty and left her husband, she deserved nothing but death. "