homecoming, advocating for mainstreaming of women into all spheres of life and even hypothesizing about a woman head of state. However, once he returned, his stances on women's rights exhibited drastic changes. Khomeini revoked Iran's 1967 divorce law, considering any divorce granted under this law to be invalid. Nevertheless, Khomeini supported women's right to divorce as allowed by Islamic law. Khomeini reaffirmed the traditional position of rape in Islamic law in which rape by a spouse was not equivalent to rape or zina, declaring "a woman must surrender to her husband for any pleasure". A mere three weeks after assuming power, under the pretext of reversing the Shah's affinity for westernization and backed by a vocal conservative section of Iranian society, he revoked the divorce law. Under Khomeini the minimum age of marriage was lowered to 15 for boys and 13 for girls; nevertheless, the average age of women at marriage continued to increase. Laws were passed that encouraged polygamy, made it impossible for women to divorce men, and treated adultery as the highest form of criminal offense. Women were compelled to wear veils and the image of Western women was carefully reconstructed as a symbol of impiety. Morality and modesty were perceived as fundamental womanly traits that needed state protection, and concepts of individual gender rights were relegated to women's social rights as ordained in Islam. Fatima was widely presented as the ideal emulatable woman. At the same time, amidst the religious orthodoxy, there was an active effort to rehabilitate women into employment. Female participation in healthcare, education and the workforce increased drastically during his regime. Reception among women of his regime has been mixed. Whilst a section were dismayed at the increasing Islamisation and concurrent degradation of women's rights, others did notice more opportunities and mainstreaming of relatively religiously conservative women. LGBTQ rights Shortly after his accession as supreme leader in February 1979, Khomeini imposed capital punishment on homosexuals. Between February and March, sixteen Iranians were executed due to offenses related to sexual violations. Khomeini also created the "Revolutionary Tribunals". According to historian Ervand Abrahamian, Khomeini encouraged the clerical courts to continue implementing their version of the Shari'a. As part of the campaign to "cleanse" the society, these courts executed over 100 drug addicts, prostitutes, homosexuals, rapists, and adulterers on the charge of "sowing corruption on earth." According to author Arno Schmitt, "Khomeini asserted that 'homosexuals' had to