I've just come across this story, via RichardDawkins.net: "France plunged into a heated debate about its marriage laws today after learning that a court had annulled the union of two Muslims because the husband said the wife was not the virgin she had claimed to be". Apparently, the husband's lawyer defended his client's position by saying that "the wife had lied about what French law calls an "essential quality" of a contracting party".

Good grief. This is western Europe, 2008. That a court should connive with such archaic male chauvinism is an affront to women. Did anyone ask the husband if he was a virgin?

Still, the wife is surely better off without him.