gawd!! this would have to be the stupidest ruling i've ever come across...right after divorcing based on "lack of penis size"

To be really fair the man would have to be a virgin too. Impossible to tell though. The same for a woman; she can still be a virgin and her hymen not be intact for various reasons.

Only in our *enlightened* day and age has this not been an issue. Marriages use to involve property rights, inheritance, family honor, etc.... Some parts of the world have not caught up with the *modern* standards which we all have come to accept as reasonable.

Recalling some young women were even murdered in so-called "honour
killings", she said the wife in this case "did not have the freedom not
to lie ... she lied in self-defence

The whole thing is sad. As Tany pointed out, there is not only a horrible double standard here, but it looks like you may risk your life for doing something that is part of being human.

I think the divorce was based on the fact that the marriage was instituted thru fraud. If she would have been honest about her virginity either there wouldn't have been a marriage or he would have known and married anyways.
The issue is trust and honesty - two things that are Extremely important in a marriage. She lied or lied by omission of truth. She frauded him and he went to court.

I agree with Tanya, a woman's hymen can break for many reason.
But I had no idea that it can be stitched back together, I was aware that it tend to grow closed again after a very very long long while, providing that it is not repeatedly broken.

But the annulment is valid, the contract of marriage was breached.
Anyway would she really want to stay married to a man that will end a marriage over a trivial issue?

Islam, like all religion, teaches people non-sense in the name of morality. It is actually 'anti-morality' to discard your love for a human being because they have had sex with someone before you...