An interesting piece on mut'a the temporary marriage many Muslims use as a way to get around restrictions on sexual relations.

Remarkably, Iran's Shiite clerics not only tolerate sigheh, but actively promote it as an important element of the country's official religion. "Temporary marriages must be bravely promoted," the interior minister said at a clerical conference in Qom in 2007. "Islam is in no way indifferent to the needs of a 15-year-old youth in whom God has placed the sex drive."