Broken Contracts, Broken Hearts

A student in her 20s and an engineer in his 30s marry in France. They are Muslim. It turns out that she is not a virgin and, since the marriage agreement was based on "an error in the essential qualities of the bride,"–forbidden under the language of Article 180 of the Civil Code–the court agrees to annul the marriage.

Is this ruling:

1) "a real fatwa against the emancipation and liberty of women," as Urban Affairs Minister Fadela Amara says.

or is it

2) a reasonable outcome in a contract dispute?

I'm inclined to favor the latter, especially since the possibility of doing a decent, peaceable, Western thing, like getting a marriage annulled for misrepresentation if the bride fails to deliver a bloodstained sheet, might forestall more grisly extra-judicial solutions, like honor killing.

The woman does not want an appeal:

"I don't know who's trying to think in my place. I didn't ask for anything. … I wasn't the one who asked for the media attention, for people to talk about it, and for this to last so long."

For his part, the husband says it wasn't the sex, it was the lying.

Discuss.

Via alert reader Mark