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Virginity Lie Not Grounds for Annulment
French court ruling makes Muslim couple married again
By Matt Cantor
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Posted Nov 17, 08 12:02 PM CST
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(Newser)
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France has overturned a lower court decision annulling a Muslim couple’s marriage on grounds that the bride lied about being a virgin, the BBC reports. That means the couple is married again—whether they like it or not. Husband and wife both accepted the original decision, but it sparked a public outcry; some feminists slammed it as “a real fatwa against the emancipation of women.”
In the case, the husband’s lawyers held that he had been duped into marrying a woman who’d assured him she’d never had a boyfriend. Feminists said that, were the gender roles flipped, that argument would never fly; others wondered if the ruling was affected by the couple’s religion in a country that calls itself secular.