Accidental Blogger

Face lifts, tummy tucks, breast augmentations, collagen injections, skin lightening cream – all means  of enhancing social acceptance, self image and sexual / matrimonial prospects. Physical attributes that are deemed attractive are polished and altered surgically or chemically – overwhelmingly by the female half of the population in prosperous societies.  We accept these interventions, some quite drastic, as merely personal choices available in a free society. (Whom are we kidding?) How about Hymenoplasty? Comfortable as we are with our own cosmetic choices, should we on the other hand, frown upon "sexually backward" communities that put a premium on some other physical attributes that signal "morality" rather than "beauty?" Can that too be a personal choice?  Odious as it is to us, the proof of virginity of the bride is prized in some societies even in this day and age. Most of the time in their native environments, the women in certain cultures usually ARE virgins at the time of marriage because social commingling of opposite sexes is severely curtailed. But when members of those same cultures allow their girls and women educational and economic freedoms or when they relocate within societies which afford women much greater autonomy of movement and socialization, the virginity of a prospective bride cannot be taken for granted. 

While we were busy hotly debating whether a woman can serve as the Commander in Chief of the world’s most powerful nation, a marriage was annulled in France on the grounds that a bride who claimed to be a virgin turned out to be not one. A furor has ensued … and predictably so. 

(AP) The bride said she was a virgin. When her new husband discovered that was a lie, he went to court to annul the marriage – and a French judge agreed.

The ruling ending the Muslim couple’s union has stunned France and raised concerns the country’s much-cherished secular values are losing ground to religious traditions from its fast-growing immigrant communities.

The decision also exposed the silent shame borne by some Muslim women who transgress long-held religious dictates demanding proof of virginity on the wedding night.

In its ruling, the court concluded the woman had misrepresented herself  as a virgin and that, in this particular marriage, virginity was a prerequisite.

But in treating the case as a breach of contract, the ruling was decried by critics who said it undermined decades of progress in women’s rights. Marriage, they said, was reduced to the status of a commercial transaction in which women could be discarded by husbands claiming to have discovered hidden defects in them.

Do note that the judge’s decision had nothing to do, at least formally, with the couple’s religion (Islam) or the bride’s virginity (or lack thereof). He granted the annulment because the marriage was formalized under "false pretense" and hence it amounted to a breach of contract, according to him. The bride admitted that she had indeed led the groom to believe that she was a virgin, knowing that it was a condition for his agreeing to the marriage.  We (and the French) can argue the merits of the judge’s decision and whether the law should permit undue burdens of purity being placed solely on one marriage partner as a prior condition. Muslim women in France and elsewhere in Europe are not holding their breath for the law to weigh in on their behalf. And even if it did, the cultural reality for most of them will remain unchanged. Unfortunately the majority of these women bear the antiquated burden of "shame and honor" (their own as well as those of their families) on their shoulders. Most therefore tacitly accept that virginity is a condition expected of them in the nuptial bed. For those young women who give in to their natural youthful passions and thus fail to live up to the strict code of sexual purity before marriage, the wedding night can sometimes become a game of playing the "virgin" to reassure their husbands, gain favor with their families and ensure marital harmony. 

PARIS — The operation in the private clinic off the Champs-Élysées involved one semicircular cut, 10 dissolving stitches and a discounted fee of $2,900.

But for the patient, a 23-year-old French student of Moroccan descent from Montpellier, the 30-minute procedure represented the key to a new life: the illusion of virginity.

Like an increasing number of Muslim women in Europe, she had a hymenoplasty, a restoration of her hymen, the vaginal membrane that normally breaks in the first act of intercourse.

“In my culture, not to be a virgin is to be dirt,” said the student, perched on a hospital bed as she awaited surgery on Thursday. “Right now, virginity is more important to me than life.”

As Europe’s Muslim population grows, many young Muslim women are caught between the freedoms that European society affords and the deep-rooted traditions of their parents’ and grandparents’ generations.

Gynecologists say that in the past few years, more Muslim women are seeking certificates of virginity to provide proof to others. That in turn has created a demand among cosmetic surgeons for hymen replacements, which, if done properly, they say, will not be detected and will produce tell-tale vaginal bleeding on the wedding night. The service is widely advertised on the Internet; medical tourism packages are available to countries like Tunisia where it is less expensive.

“If you’re a Muslim woman growing up in more open societies in Europe, you can easily end up having sex before marriage,” said Dr. Hicham Mouallem, who is based in London and performs the operation. “So if you’re looking to marry a Muslim and don’t want to have problems, you’ll try to recapture your virginity.”

No reliable statistics are available, because the procedure is mostly done in private clinics and in most cases not covered by tax-financed insurance plans.