t some level all this talk about the marriage in France that was recently annulled because the woman lied about being a virgin is rather troubling.  As it turns out, the court will take up the issue again; and so for the moment the marriage has in fact been reinstated.  By the way, if the marriage was an arranged one, then what we may have is a “face-saving” attempt between them to annul the marriage—a marriage which neither the woman nor the man wanted.  I shall set this possibility aside, however.

Still, we need to be clear about why what has happened is so troubling, given the assumption that we do not have an arranged marriage.  As we shall see, things are troubling on two very different levels.  To begin with, though, if a woman has to lie about being a virgin, then one might very well argue that there is already a problem with the man whom she wants to marry.  Why?  Because this is to say that for him, the woman’s virginity is a more decisive factor than her moral character; and that is absurd.  I can only suppose that the man was attracted to the woman, in the first place, because of her moral character; and that did not change upon the discovery that she is not a virgin. 

This does not excusing her deceiving him.  For that was wrong and nothing changes that fact.

There still the issue of his insistence upon virginity; and we shall see this is in fact a serious problem. 

Noqw, do not misunderstand me.  If this is what a man wants to insist upon, then so be it.  People insist upon all sorts of indefensible things.  But when we inexorably insist upon something, we should be able to give a rather illuminating answer to the question: To what end are we holding out unfailingly for the thing in question?  And when the thing upon which we insist is entirely unrelated to excellence, then that is a problem. 

Now, it is not just the man’s insistence upon his wife’s virginity that concerns me.  I have continually wondered about the woman, too.  I mean if the man she wants to marry is that inflexibly tied to tradition that he cannot look pass it to apprehend the depth of her character, then my very first thought is that we have a bad match before we even get started.  That is, she should have thought him way too uncompromising about the wrong issue.  So her willingness to lie reveals just how warped she was, given that she knew the importance that he attached to the issue.  There was no reason whatsoever to think that he was going to have a change of heart on their wedding night.  So this was the wrong man for her. 

If there is perhaps a correlation between excellence of moral character and virginity, it is not a very strong one.  In particular, what is surely not the case is that the mere absence of virginity entails that someone has what is called a loose moral character.  So it is whether we are talking about the man or the female.  In the typical case: A woman would be a fool to marry a 30 year old male who has slept around with 30 women—and for exactly the same reasons that a man would be a fool to marry a 30 year old woman who has slept around with 30 men.  While reasonable people can differ over how many sexual partners before make a person an unsafe bet for a marital partner, this much clear: The correct answer is certainly not 1.  Hence, it follows as a matter of logic that the absence of virginity does not in and of itself warrant a negative assessment of a person’s moral character in terms of being good spouse or a good parent.  That would be rather like supposing that if a person had been once inebriated, then we might as well say that the individual is an alcoholic. 

But the recent issue in France very much speaks to a larger issue.  This is because hymnoplasty is becoming very serious business among Muslims in Europe.  But what is hymnoplasty?  It is a way of putting the hymen back in place.  Muslim women who are seeking the surgery are those who have lost their virginity and who wish to hide this fact in order to secure a Muslim marriage with a Muslim man. 

So, between (1) the woman who is simply honest that she is not a virgin and (2) the woman who has hymnoplasty in order to hide the fact that she is not a virgin: Who is the better woman?  There can be no question but the first woman is very much the better woman (other things equal).  And any Muslim man who is so fixated with virginity that he would rather have a woman who lives a foundational lie throughout their entire marriage to one who is honest with him from the very outset (or when appropriate after the relationship has developed) is a Muslim man who has an improper fixation with both virginity and an aspect of Muslim tradition.  He is a man who is more interested in the image than the reality.  And that is a problem for any marriage, no matter what the religious tradition or lack thereof. 

It is worth pointing out that everything I have said is perfectly compatible with holding virginity until marriage as an ideal.  But what should be our response be when an ideal is not met?  Well, that depends on a lot of things.  And what seems manifestly clear is that it is a mistake to be so unshakably tied to an ideal that one will accept nothing else—especially when a single act suffices to make it the case that one has missed the mark and enormous excellence of character thereinafter is completely ignored. 

After all, there are ideals for a good husband as well.  And I suspect that most Muslim men miss the mark on numerous occasions.  There is no single litmus test analogous to the absence of virginity that makes a Muslim man an unacceptable husband.  And in this sense, women are right to point out that the initial annulment is offensive to women. 

Marriage is a profound commitment between two people.  Both should bring moral excellence to the occasion.  And if failing a virginity test, when in point of fact virginity is quite independent of excellence of character, can make a woman unfit to be a bride, then there ought to be similar test for a man the failure of which reveals the man unfit to be a groom. That is fairness. 

A final comment: All three monotheistic religious traditions place a value upon virginity.  Judaism and Christianity allow for repentance with respect to sex outside of marriage.  And surely that is how it should be.  Whatever else is true, insofar as sex outside of marriage is wrong it is not a wrong that in and of itself taints a person’s character forever.  And any religious tradition that would in effect make that claim about a woman who is not a virgin is simply misguided.  This follows even if one supposes that in the matter of sex women should be more circumspect than men. 

Thus, to the extent that Muslim men are playing the virginity card, then men are wronging the very people, namely Muslim women, whose purity they deem so important.  Muslim men are doing this by making the utterly indefensible move of fixing upon the presence of a single bodily part as a sign of moral excellence in character. 

Indeed, in their insistence on virginity, Muslim men are making things worse for both Muslim women and men alike.  Here is why.  Because hymnoplasty now makes it possible for Muslim women to live a lie, then the Muslim male insistence upon female virginity is contributing to the desecration of the very institution that both should regard as sacred; for the lie has been made more important the sacredness of the marriage and the commitment of the wife and husband to one another.  Not a good start.  Absolutely not.  For it has already been conceded that the lie and the image are more important than the reality of truth.