The government fears the ruling could set a worrying legal precedent
By Frances Harrison
BBC Religious affairs correspondent
http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=159
A French Muslim couple have opposed a government decision to contest a court ruling annulling their http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=3976.
Her lawyer has said she accepts the judgement of a court in Lille and simply wants to get on with her life.
The court granted the man’s request for an annulment after ruling he had been tricked into the marriage.
It sparked an emotional debate and angered feminists who said it amounted to a fatwa against women’s liberty.
According to media reports, the husband, an engineer in his thirties, married the trainee nurse in the summer of 2006, having been assured by her that she had never previously had a boyfriend.Under the French civil code, a marriage can be annulled if a spouse has lied about an “essential quality” of the relationship.
Lawyers for the couple say both their clients have accepted the court decision to annul their marriage and they are unhappy about the emotional public debate their case has triggered.
Some women ministers in the French government have called the court’s ruling “a real fatwa against the emancipation of women” and “a ruling handed down in Kandahar”.
Feminists argue the decision is unfair because a woman would not be able to cancel her marriage if she thought her husband was not a virgin.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7434361.stm