Soraya Esfandiary-Bakhtiari - Infertility and Divorce

Infertility and Divorce

Though the wedding took place during a heavy snow, deemed a good omen, the imperial couple's marriage had disintegrated by early 1958 owing to Soraya's apparent infertility, for which she had sought treatment in Switzerland and France, and the Shah's suggestion that he take a second wife in order to produce an heir. She left Iran in February and eventually went to her parents' home in Cologne, Germany, where the Shah sent his wife's uncle, Senator Sardar Assad Bakhtiari in early March 1958, in a failed attempt to convince her to return to Iran. On 10 March, a council of advisors met with the Shah to discuss the situation of the troubled marriage and the lack of an heir. Four days later, it was announced that the imperial couple would divorce. It was, the 25-year-old queen said, "a sacrifice of my own happiness." She later told reporters that her husband had no choice but to divorce her.

On 21 March 1958, the Iranian New Year's Day, a weeping Shah announced his divorce to the Iranian people in a speech that was broadcast on radio and television; he said that he would not remarry in haste. The headline-making divorce inspired French writer Françoise Mallet-Joris to write a hit pop song, Je veux pleurer comme Soraya (I Want to Cry Like Soraya). The marriage was officially ended on 6 April 1958.

According to a report in The New York Times, extensive negotiations had preceded the divorce in order to convince Queen Soraya to allow her husband to take a second wife. The Queen, however, citing what she called the "sanctity of marriage", stated that "she could not accept the idea of sharing her husband's love with another woman."

In a statement issued to the Iranian people from her parents' home in Germany, Soraya said, "Since His Imperial Majesty Reza Shah Pahlavi has deemed it necessary that a successor to the throne must be of direct descent in the male line from generation to generation to generation, I will with my deepest regret in the interest of the future of the State and of the welfare of the people in accordance with the desire of His Majesty the Emperor sacrifice my own happiness, and I will declare my consent to a separation from His Imperial Majesty."

After the divorce, the Shah, who had told a reporter who asked about his feelings for the former Queen that "nobody can carry a torch longer than me", indicated his interest in marrying Princess Maria Gabriella of Savoy, a daughter of the deposed Italian king Umberto II. In an editorial about the rumors surrounding the marriage of "a Muslim sovereign and a Catholic princess", the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, considered the match "a grave danger".