So I’m looking at a client’s marriage certificate, translated from the Urdu…and one line item has a box for the bride’s status (though there is no corresponding box for the groom).
You can indicate “whether the Bride is Virgin, a Widow or a Divorced Wife.”
I’ve seen the same on Iranian marriage certificates (these sometimes also add a box for which number wife the bride is), and probably those from a few other countries as well…
Just an observation. There are certainly lots of other cultures that place a high importance on premarital virginity, but I can’t think of any others offhand that have you list the state of the bride’s hymen on the government-issued marriage certificate. Oh well…at least divorce is an option.
Do they really mean it that way (quite possible), or is it a language issue? For instance, here there’s the whole “maiden name” issue with a woman’s surname before marriage. Besides whether or not she might actually change it, the term “maiden” is quite strongly connected with the idea of being a virgin.
As I don’t know Urdu or Farsi, I couldn’t begin to tell you. But as I’ve seen it translated as “virgin” across the board in these situations, and never as “maiden,” by hundreds of different professional translators, I suspect they really mean it that way.
(Also, in this case, the bride kept her last name as it was before marriage, which is more common in much of the world than I think many Americans suspect. So it definitely wasn’t an issue of misunderstanding what “maiden name” meant.)
A lot goes on in Iran which is highly illegal but is ignored by almost everyone. I’ve always wanted to visit, especially after my Persian boss has told me all about the crazy parties they have there. He’s had several of his American friends go over and never want to come back here.
Take drinking for an example. Officially, only Christians and Jews are allowed to drink and they are only able to do so in private. In reality, the Persians this deadly alcohol (made from potatos? rice?) that they drink at huge parties where they also dance and hang out with members of the opposite sex. Officially, they aren’t supposed to do such things but they just bribe the local police.
I lived in Iran for three years. There is not a lot of premarital sex, but there is some. I knew several guys that married Iranian women and although they didn’t have vaginal sex until after the wedding, they did have oral and/or anal sex before they were married.
