NYT Story Too Bizarre to Pass Up

The New York Times ran a story today about the growing number of Muslim women in Europe that are having hymenoplasty, a cosmetic surgery procedure to restore the illusion of virginity. Unfortunately, the web article does not show what page it was printed on, but it was prominent enough to make their daily email newsletter.

A woman interviewed for the story attributed the rupture of her membrane to a horse riding accident. She decided to have the hymenoplasty procedure when she was unable to obtain a certificate of virginity for her upcoming wedding, after hearing about a recent French court case in which a divorce was granted because the bride was not a virgin as was promised. This has reportedly pushed many Muslim women to have the procedure.

In one passage, an Italian director of a film that makes light of the subject comments about how these women can integrate into European society well, but cannot resist their culture on this matter. In one case in the article, a couple decided to share the costs of the surgery in order to placate conservative parents. I can only hope that people who had to go to these lengths will be a liberalizing influence for their children and for people around them in the future.

Second, for the cases that are not cooperation between partners, I can't help but wonder what such deception does to a marriage psychologically. Of course, there is plenty of deception going into many marriages around the world, but this deception usually doesn't come with certificated physical evidence to back it up.

Finally, while Westerners might want to smugly look down at this practice, we should take a look at one sentence of the article and take a second to think:

"The issue has been particularly charged in France, where a renewed and fierce debate has occurred about a prejudice that was supposed to have been buried with the country’s sexual revolution 40 years ago: the importance of a woman’s virginity."

Similar ideas about virginity and marriage are not that far gone from the West. While many in the West encourage chastity until marriage, the issue is no longer the subject of certificates or other proof. My understanding is that many cultures had similar practices (such as the showing of the sheet) until recently. I don't have time to research it, so if someone has knowledge of such practices in Europe, please comment. In any case, norms and values that are seen as archaic to many in the West were common in their own families only a generation or two back.

I'll give the last word to the vice president of the Islamic Center in Lille, France where the wedding was held for couple whose marriage was annulled over her non-virgin status:
“The man is the biggest of all the donkeys. Even if the woman was no longer a virgin, he had no right to expose her honor. This is not what Islam teaches. It teaches forgiveness.”