In some cultures, it is more than her sparkling eyes, her radiant smile, or her exhilarating personality that makes a woman a desirable bride.
There are billions of women in this world, old enough to be married, but a man must choose only one: one that is suitable for him. That, in fact, is a difficult job. What makes it even more difficult is the fact that whatever choice you make, whether good or bad, you are supposed to live with her for the rest of your life. That is why we say “life partner”.
With this in mind, men are careful when choosing a woman when it comes for marriage. At least the serious ones are. Consciously or unconsciously, there is always a yardstick by which this choice is made. Some of the criteria that make this yardstick include love, beauty, ability to prepare good meals, taking care of parents, education, salary etc. Recently, I discovered that one criteria that I thought had become obsolete, was still as strong as ever – Virginity.
One of my Goan friend put me in a very difficult position. He wanted me to help him make a final choice between two girls. He was finally left with only two girls after the bride shopping. He was really confused as to which one of them he should finally settle down with. They were both fair, They were both graduates, they were both Goans and they were both slender with beautiful hair. These are qualities that he cherished and he got them in both. From what he told me, he liked both of them at that point. Me, Shirley (my room mate) and he decided that Shirley should get close to each of them to find out more, so that based on the information she gather, he could make a final decision.
Shirley was also goan and she could easily get close to them and she did a good investigative work! I?m not disclosing exactly how she gathered this information but at the end of it all she had something about both of them. She skillfully extracted information from them without giving them any cause to suspect that what she was doing.
Interestingly, something happened, which made my friend choose before we had the chance of laying Shirley’s investigation before him. We were in the house of a American friend who had just come back from his honeymoon. Because marriage was so much on his mind, my friend wanted to know how the honeymoon went. He even asked our married friend his happiest moment or what he referred to as the “highest point” of their honeymoon.
Surprisingly, our friend did not hide anything from us. Perhaps it was because we were very close. He told us that the highest point for him was when he learnt that his wife was a virgin.
|
Consciously or unconsciously, there is always a yardstick by which this choice is made. 
My friend was shocked. I on the other hand was surprised that he found this revelation shocking. He never thought that a beautiful, fair university graduate could stay a virgin till marriage. It was news to him. In fact he did not think our friend deserved a virgin because he had been quite sexually adventurous in the past. He thought God must have a special liking for our friend to give him a virgin who is not a village girl for a wife.
It was then that I realized that I had the answer for him. If he treasured virginity that much, then we did not have to worry again because one of the girls we were considering, was a virgin and the other was not. As soon as we left my friend?s house, the first tip I gave him was the fact that one of the girls was a virgin. It was enough. The search was over. The virgin won. He did not want to hear anymore. He went ahead and engaged to her.
What a weapon she had! My question is if men cherish virginity this much why don?t they allow women to remain so till they marry them? While you try to answer that, I want you to consider these. Women do all kinds of things to get husbands. Try virginity. In fact there are more virgins out there than we care to admit and I am talking about women who are more than 25 years old and who are doing quite well in the society. If you respect yourself enough, if you love yourself enough you will find yourself making a decision to abstain.
When it comes to marriage, virgins have an edge over the others. Ask the men. I?m talking about men who are straight in their thinking. I think it is time parents encouraged their children to make the decision to abstain, educate them when there are blank thoughts in their mind. Making it a goal makes it easier to achieve. Go ahead, add value to yourself!
Author: Renita Pereira- USA
