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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, stunning the country and raising concerns the country's much-cherished secular values are losing ground to cultural traditions from its fast-growing immigrant communities. Yes, we're talking to you Muslims.

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. Well, duh!

The issue is particularly distressing for France because the government has fought to maintain strong secular traditions as demographics change. An estimated 5 million Muslims live in the country of 64 million, the largest Muslim population in Western Europe. France passed a law in 2004 banning Muslim headscarves and other ostentatious religious signs from classrooms, a move that caused an uproar in the Muslim world. Now, critics contend another law on the books is being used to effectively condone the custom requiring a woman to enter marriage as a virgin, and prove it with bloodstained sheets on her wedding night. If you put it like that, it sounds like no fun.

Article 180 of the Civil Code states that when a couple enters into a marriage, if the "essential qualities" of a spouse are misrepresented, then "the other spouse can seek the nullity of the marriage." Past examples of marriages that were annulled include a husband found to be impotent and a wife who was a prostitute. Ironically, Article 180 also guards against forced marriages.

The lawyer for the bridegroom in question, says it was not the young woman's virginity that was at issue. "The question is not one of virginity. The question is one of lying."

Interestingly, in the ruling, there is no word "Muslim" there is no word "religion", there is no word "custom". And if one speaks of virginity it is with the term '"a lie". I wonder how they even know what they were talking about. Both the man and the woman "understand that annulling the marriage is preferable to divorce because it wipes the slate clean (of) what you want to forget, but divorce wipes away nothing."

Although divorced Muslim women are allowed to remarry, they are expected to be forthcoming with their new husband about the previous marriage, and divorce can carry a cultural stigma for women. Indeed, the court ruling states that the woman "acquiesced" to the demand for an annulment "based on a lie concerning her virginity". One can deduce that this quality (virginity) was seen by her as an essential quality that was decisive in the man's decision to marry.

The decision underscored the painful predicament faced today by many Muslim women in France and elsewhere in the West who become sexually emancipated but remain bound by strict codes of honor inherited and enforced by their families — and prospective husbands. It is not unusual for young Muslim women to procure fake virginity certificates, use tricks like vials of spilled blood on the wedding night or even undergo hymen repair to satisfy family expectations, and evade the shame that would follow if their secret got out.

I'm for women's rights, but if you're being married under the archaic standards of a violent religion, those terms are what matter. His marriage was contingent upon that one fact, which having been revealed first would have prevented the whole mess. It may be simplifying things, but it really is that simple.