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TEHRAN, Iran — Spouses of politicians rarely take center stage on Iran’s political scene and, for the most part, remain entirely out of the public eye. Few Iranians know very much about their presidents' wives, including their names. Effat Marashi, however, is an exception.
The wife of the late Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was born into a prominent clerical family. One year younger than her husband, she married Rafsanjani in 1959 at the age of 23, when the future two-time president of Iran was a young seminary student. Marashi would later become one of the most political and high-profile wives of an Iranian president.
