Transnational Families and Legal Complexity: Marriage, Custody, and Migration
Keywords:
Transnational families, legal complexity, marriage migration, custody disputes, family law, migration lawAbstract
This study aimed to explore how members of transnational families in Tehran experience and interpret legal complexity in relation to cross-border marriage, child custody, and migration-related family decision-making. This qualitative study was conducted using semi-structured interviews with 24 participants living in Tehran who had direct experience of transnational family life through international marriage, migration, cross-border separation, custody disputes, or family reunification processes. Participants were selected through purposive sampling, followed by snowball sampling to reach information-rich cases. Data collection continued until theoretical saturation was achieved at the 21st interview, with three additional interviews conducted to confirm saturation. Interviews were audio-recorded with informed consent, transcribed verbatim, anonymized, and analyzed using thematic analysis. NVivo software was used to organize transcripts, develop initial codes, compare categories, retrieve coded segments, and construct final themes. Trustworthiness was enhanced through member checking, peer review, prolonged engagement with the data, and maintenance of an analytic audit trail. Analysis generated four main categories: legal fragmentation across jurisdictions, bureaucratic uncertainty in marriage and migration procedures, custody insecurity and parental role disruption, and informal family strategies for navigating legal ambiguity. Participants described transnational family life as a continuous negotiation between personal relationships, state regulations, cultural expectations, and institutional procedures. Marriage recognition, residence status, documentation, child travel permission, and custody enforcement were repeatedly identified as sources of stress. Participants also reported relying on informal networks, lawyers, relatives abroad, translators, and digital communication to compensate for limited institutional guidance. The findings indicate that transnational families encounter legal complexity not as an abstract procedural problem but as a lived condition shaping intimacy, parenting, belonging, and family security. Effective legal and social responses require coordinated institutional guidance, culturally sensitive family law services, accessible legal information, and child-centered mechanisms for resolving cross-border custody and migration-related disputes.
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