An Egyptian woman has been ordered to pay her former husband £5,240 compensation after being found guilty of lying that she was virgin when they were married.
An Abu Dhabi Appeal Court upheld an original ruling that found the woman guilty of deceiving her husband during subsequent divorce proceedings, Al Bawaba reports.
The court heard the woman, along with her father, made false statements in the couple’s marriage contract including that she had never been married nor had sex.
Egyptian society has conservative attitudes towards premarital and extramarital sex (file pictures)
Her present husband was informed of his wife’s past by an anonymous text message, received three years into their marriage and after she had borne him a child.
He then received a copy of her divorce papers, after which he filed a lawsuit against his wife and began his own separation proceedings.
According to the IBI times, the man said her deception had left him “suffering from depression and had lost trust in the people around him.”
He also claims she had an operation to “restore” her virginity before they were married.
Egyptian society has conservative attitudes towards premarital and extramarital sex.
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In 2009 lawmakers called for a ban on imports of a Chinese-made kit which purported to fool newly married men their wives were virgins.
The Artificial Virginity Hymen Kit leaks a blood-like substance when inserted and broken, the Associated Press reported.
Prominent Egyptian religious scholar Abdel Moati Bayoumi said anyone who imported the artificial hymen should be punished.
"This product encourages illicit sexual relations. Islamic culture forbids these relations except within the confines of marriage," Bayoumi said.
"I think this should absolutely not be allowed to be exported because it brings more harm than benefits. Whoever does it (imports it) should be punished."
Surgical restoration of the hymen, known as hymenoplasty, is a procedure which sees the torn edges of the hymen sewn back together so that subsequent intercourse will typically tear the membrane, causing pain and bleeding.