The role of women in the Zoroastrian and Parsi communities remains controversial and significant. Gender roles in the community have slowly been evolving as societal norms around them progress.
Formal rights for women
Formal institutions, such as laws and courts, have led women within this community to find themselves both at the center of a tradition and compromised by it.
Role of trusts
Within the Parsi community, religious spaces are managed and funded by charitable trusts. It is through this mechanism that Parsi women's rights in such religious spaces are determined within the Parsi community in India.
Parsi personal law
Personal laws are those that apply only to a certain community, class, or group of people within India, often with reference to one's religion, faith, and caste. Such Personal Laws vary according to religion and as such there are Personal Laws for the Hindu, Muslim, Christian, and Parsi communities.
The Parsi Personal Laws are dictated by the Parsi Marriage and Divorce Act of 1936. The act was written and adopted on April 23, 1936, and later amended in 2001. Parsi Personal Laws only address marriage between two Parsis of the opposite sex. The main purpose of the Personal Laws are to outlaw child marriage, incest, and polygamy.
The most notable articles within the act include Article 6 that requires for every marriage under the act to be registered. Article 32B dictates that divorce must be filed by both husband and wife on the ground of both parties living separately for a year or more, an inability to live together, and the mutual agreement of separation. Article 34 furthers this with the protocol that any married person can sue for a judicial separation on the same conditions that a divorce might be filed.
The Parsi Personal Laws function in accordance with the Special Marriage Act of 1954. This act states that it is compulsory for all marriages to be registered, regardless of the religious identity of the individuals involved. The two acts, while functioning together, are often at odds with one another with relation to intermarriage, and the validity of such marriages.
Inheritance law
Parsi Laws of Inheritance dictate that any non-Parsi woman who is the wife, or widow, of a Parsi man cannot receive inheritance from their husbands. However, the children of such a couple, born to a non-Parsi mother and a Parsi father, are entitled to the inheritance of their fathers.
Intermarriage rights
Intermarriage is the term used to refer to married couples that are of different religious faiths. More and more Parsis are marrying outside the community. Parsi woman marrying a non-parsi is allowed to enter the fire temple and participate in religious activities.
Before December 2017, a Parsi women who marries a non-Parsi man was automatically considered to have converted to the religion of her husband. She was forced to renunciate her identity as a Parsi. She no longer had access to the legal protections and religious spaces that are governed by the Parsi trusts. This included places of worship, known as Agyaris or fire temples, and sacred burial sites. On December 14, 2017 Supreme court overruled the verdict of High Court of Gujarat which stated the denial of parsi woman to enter fire temple is illegal. A parsi woman marrying a non-parsi is now allowed to enter the fire temple and tower of silence and participate in other religious activities. The children of an intermarriage can only be recognized as Parsi if their father is a Parsi and their mother is a non-Parsi. In the case that their father is a non-Parsi and their mother is a Parsi, they are not allowed to identify as Parsi nor be raised as such. Such children are, like their Parsi mothers post-marriage to a non-Parsi man, unable to enter the Agyaris nor be accepted into the faith group through the ritual, the Navjote.
Notable court cases
There have been a series of judicial cases concerning women's rights within the Parsi community that have been escalated to the High Courts of India. Such cases have brought legal, media, and popular attention to progression towards greater rights for Parsi women.