“We only want ‘Virgin’ Bride for matrimony.”

A casual stroll in the park that evening led me to a group of gossiping aunties who were engrossed in some discussion. I barged in to find what’s amusing them this week only to hear “You don’t know? Mr. Sharma’s daughter is not a virgin it seems, and her marriage broke due to this reason! These days youngsters are too fast….it wasn't the same in our times…..” went on the banter.

I was shell-shocked to find that a guy rejected the beautiful and educated girl just on the basis of her hymen-status! It’s a sickening feeling that the society associates virginity to purity and chastity and see no scope of happy married life for that girl. What they fail to recognize is, the groom may not be a virgin either, but the bride should be “virgin, fair, tall and slim, preferably educated!”

Our society is very ironical at times. We tend to think the girl’s attire is responsible for her to be attacked by anti-social elements. We still have love jihads, honor killings, dowry practice; yet we boast of Indian culture and how it’s being adulterated with modernism!

There’s always a chance that the girl could have been in love and was hoping to get married, but when things didn’t turn out as planned, she walked out of the relationship. The girl invests emotionally and physically but when the matrimony doesn't favor her status of being a non-virgin, although it is perfectly alright for the guy who was involved before to get married with no questions asked about his virginity, imagine the heights of chutzpah the society exhibits!

Some uncles and aunties claim that the marriage can’t prosper if ‘she’ is not virgin before wedding. Experts say marriage can only progress when both the parties involved can confide in each other. When the groom is ready to trust and love his prospective wife, where does the question arise for the in-laws or the aunties of the society to even tag the girl as ‘impure’ or even make her undergo a virginity test! It becomes a different scenario when the male ego looks at the girl as a sex machine where the performances of different males are evaluated and hence won’t prefer him to be graded, eventually asking for a virgin bride! Its appalling how the survey conducted by Hindustan Times says 63% of men in India prefer virgins for marriage. For such individuals, marriage could never be a healthy relationship and the girl will always be in the shadow of the dominant male.

Image Courtesy: http://d.ibtimes.co.uk/

Well, its not just in our society. Lady Diana of England was asked to undergo virginity test before her marriage into the royalty. With so much hype around virginity test, experts say that one could never tell if an individual is virgin or not. And recent developments in plastic surgery has brought a new procedure called Hymenoplasty which re-constructs the hymen, which people fancily call as “re-virgination” which is just as ridiculous as preferring a virgin-bride in the first place.

          

The problem arises with the narrow mindset one cultivates and the herd-mentality people develop.  Its not just the grooms that ask for virgin brides, but there are demands for virgin-grooms too! The whole hullabaloo revolving around who is virgin and who is not is pointless. Unless one can start to trust their partner and not consider sex as something vile and accept it’s a natural process, there won’t be any end to the arguments regarding virgin-bride.

Its high time every girl owns up what her body is; hymen or no-hymen, she can have a fulfilling marriage if she wants to!