Is virginity a determining factor for a marriage?
Reply to Written question
| Doc. 11994
| 17 July 2009
- Author(s):
- Committee of Ministers
- Origin
- adopted
at the 1063rd meeting of the Ministers’ Deputies (8 July 2009)
- Reply to Written question
- : Written question no. 550 (Doc. 11650)
- Thesaurus
In a judgment of 1 April 2008, the Lille Regional Court annulled
a marriage on the ground that the woman had lied to her future husband
about her virginity. The court found that the marriage had been
contracted "on the basis of an objective error" and that this error
had been "crucial to [the husband’s] consent". The wife had agreed
to her husband’s request for an annulment.
As the press reported, husband and wife were French Muslims.
The judgment provoked major controversy in France and abroad.
On 2 June 2008, the French Minister of Justice asked the prosecuting
authorities to appeal against the judgment, and they did so on 3
June.
This decision is an infringement of the right to control one’s
own body, affecting women alone; in this regard, it is at variance
with the equal treatment of women and men because it is only among
women that it is physically possible, although not necessarily easy,
to prove virginity. It follows that the decision is manifestly discriminatory.
Ms Err asks the Committee of Ministers:
What steps does the Committee of Ministers intend to take
to prevent such judgments from being repeated?
Reply by the Committee of Ministers
1. In reply to the Honourable
Parliamentarian’s question, the Committee of Ministers wishes first
and foremost to reaffirm its commitment to the values upheld by
the Council of Europe and to the attainment of its core objective,
particularly as regards to preserving and promoting human rights
and their full enjoyment. It also recalls that equality between
women and men forms an integral part of human rights and is a fundamental criterion
of democracy.
Note
2. In a factual perspective, the Committee of Ministers recalls
that following the decision of 1 April 2008 by the Lille Regional
Court to annul a marriage on the ground that the wife had lied to
her husband about her virginity, the Douai Court of Appeal delivered
a ruling at appeal on 17 November 2008 dismissing the application
for annulment of marriage, on the ground that the wife’s virginity
was not an essential attribute of marriage.
3. The Committee of Ministers welcomes this decision by the French
judicial authorities. Indeed, it considers that an annulment of
marriage over a question of virginity would have raised several
issues under the European Convention on Human Rights, especially
from the standpoint of prohibition of discrimination as invoked
by the Honourable Parliamentarian.
