R ECENT legislation in Iran has drawn attention to the thought that is being given in that country to the clarification and codification of current practice in the field of family law. While it is obvious that much of the reform that has taken place has its origin in non-Iranian and especially European legislation, it is at least held in principle that the basic source of the present Iranian family laws is the Shi'a Ithna-'ashari law. We are bound however to recognize that another source of influence, in the interpretation of the laws if not in their drafting, must be popular tradition and practice. It is not the purpose of the present paper to survey this vast field, but rather to give a brief indication of the attitudes towards family relationships, between husbands and wives, parents and children, and so on, that find expression in still current popular literature. Though the substance of this material may in many cases be of great antiquity, there can be little doubt that it both reflects and influences present-day popular ideas, and must therefore be of value in assessing the reception that is likely to be given to social legislation and reform in this sensitive field. For the folk-narrator the hierarchical nature of the family is unchallenged. Perhaps it is most neatly summed up in the story of the dividing of the goose (Aarne-Thompson Type 1533); the head goes to the husband as head of the family, the heart to the wife as the symbol of love, the legs to the sons because they will walk in their father's footsteps, and the wings to the daughters because they will fly away. The village headman, who arbitrates the division and allocates the body to himself, is doubtless also reflecting an accepted facet of peasant society. Here, as throughout the folk-tales, we find emphasis on the nuclear as opposed to the extended family though one might note in passing the story, first recorded in the MarzbMn-name but still current in the oral literature, of the wife who, when offered the life of either her husband, her son or her brother, chose the last because he alone was irreplaceable. But in general marriage is regarded as the centre of the family structure. Authority plays its part from the first. Girls especially, but to a large extent also boys, are expected to rely on their parents to choose a spouse for them. Occasionally of course they require a little prompting. In the story of the Sea-Horse (Korre-e Darya') the king's three daughters draw their father's attention to their readiness for marriage by sending him three melons--overripe, ripe, and nearly ripe. Nor does parental authority always carry the day. A frequent motif is the thwarting of parental wishes by the young people