OSINFO - Open Sources Information

On my way to the south of France, I stopped overnight in Calais, and the next morning read the local newspaper, La Voix du Nord, at breakfast. At a court in nearby Lille, the paper said, a judge had annulled the marriage of two people who remained anonymous, but whom La Voix called Karima and Youssef (and Le Figaro dubbed Aicha and Noredine in its report of the same story). Youssef is a 30-year-old engineer who had married Karima, a student. Youssef is described as a practicing, though not extremist, Muslim, who wanted a “pure” wife. On their wedding night, horror of horrors, Youssef was not able to produce the sheet stained with blood to the assembled guests of both families waiting for it. He therefore felt deeply dishonored.

He went to the court seeking an annulment. His lawyer, Xavier Labbée, argued that the issue was not the bride’s lack of virginity, but the lies that she had told the groom before the marriage. If he had known that she was not a virgin, Labbée argued, Youssef would not have married Karima. Like a dishonest tradesman selling defective goods, she had misrepresented what was on offer. And Karima admitted that she had understood that if her husband knew she was not a virgin, he would not have married her, Labbée said. His client “was convinced that he could not construct a solid union based upon a lie.” The court accepted Labbée’s argument and annulled the marriage.

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Theodore Dalrymple, a physician, is a contributing editor of City Journal and the Dietrich Weismann Fellow at the Manhattan Institute.