Back to Index

Virginity: Who makes the decision?
Fungai Machirori
January 18, 2007

The Herald recently carried a front-page story on the case of a 34-year-old Harare man who allegedly raped his 11-year-old sister-in-law because of a long-standing dispute with his wife, the girl-s sister, for not having been a virgin at marriage.

In many cultures, a woman-s virginity until marriage has always been valued. Yet, when it leads to gross human rights violations, one has the desire to understand why such great value is placed on virginity, as well as its many cultural and social implications.

Traditionally, social disgrace befalls the girl who is not found to be a virgin when she weds. As Pathisa Nyathi, a prominent Zimbabwean social commentator notes in his book, Traditional Ceremonies of AmaNdebele (2001), "Pre-marital sex among the Ndebele community was despised. When it occurred, it brought shame to the girl-s family. For the girl, it meant she could not perform the bridal dance . . . and could not therefore give birth to a chief or king." The bridal dance was a sequence performed by the bridal party as they arrived at the groom-s cattle pen. It signified good upbringing by the bride-s parents. Similar patterns of marginalisation are to be found in Shona traditions. The number of cattle given to the girl-s family as bride price would be lowered with one special beast, given by the groom to the family as a token of appreciation for raising the bride well, being removed.

These practices however occur within a contradictory environment. The double standards that they dictate are that women are meant to remain pure and ignorant about sex and sexual acts, while men are free to do what they wish with their sexuality. In fact, men are often expected to test out their virility and garner as many sexual conquests as possible to prove their manhood. But if that is the case, then it surely means that men themselves are deflowering the very virgins that they want to marry!

Some traditionalists would appreciate a return to virginity testing as a means of curbing sexual activity among the young female population and indeed, some chieftainships use voluntary virginity testing as part of HIV mitigation strategies in their areas - a practice that has raised the ire of many women-s groups. A clause in the Domestic Violence Bill now outlaws forced virginity testing, but not the practice of testing altogether. This is a practice, like any other, that has its own merits and demerits. One obvious positive is the sense of pride and achievement that a girl may feel at being publicly recognised as being a virgin, for we must not forget that the status of "virgin" places a young woman in high esteem with her elders. However, this same status predisposes the girls to the risk of rape and sexual abuse at the hands of men who believe that sleeping with a virgin can cure ailments such as sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and HIV. And those girls found to not be virgins face ostracism and castigation by family and friends, which undoubtedly has negative repercussions for the girl-s confidence and feeling of self-worth.

The desperate pursuit of virginity leads some to almost unbelievable measures. Some herbalists are reported to sell medicines that can 'grow back" a women-s hymen while there are also believed to be gynaelogical procedures that can reconfigure a woman-s hymen by sewing a flap of skin over her vagina. Non-virgin girls are even alleged to stuff pieces of raw meat up themselves prior to inspection, for fear of failing a virginity test. Other women take pills to induce menstruation to occur at the time of their wedding so that the all-important traces of blood will appear on the wedding sheets.

But this preoccupying fear of rejection at not being virgin runs concurrently and ironically, with the fear of being found to be one! Young people especially face this pressure. They have access to international media, which conveys the 21st century message of monetary and sexual hedonism in messages transmitted through music, television shows, magazines and movies. In that world, it is "cool" to have sex and rack as many notches on your post as possible. But on the other side, Zimbabwe-s own vital institutions of socialisation - particularly the family and the media - remain worryingly silent on sex, as though it isn-t happening. Of course, with the urgent call to stop the spread of HIV, attitudes are changing. Condom advertisements appear in the local media and some dramas depict HIV and AIDS scenarios and story lines. But their driver, sexual activity, is often inadequately addressed. The truth is that people are having sex, or how could Zimbabwe record the highest rate of condom use in the world last year? And so it seems that there is a spiral of silence and distortion of reality on the issues of sex and sexuality, they being usually discussed, locally, only within the parameters of HIV and AIDS.

The decision to have sex should be a well-thought out one because unlike many other choices we make in our modern consumerist world, this is one that an individual does not get a second chance on. Perhaps for this very same reason that we live in such societies does no one believe that anyone is actually abstaining from sexual activity. A memorable quote that springs to mind is one from an article where a dispirited man is searching for a virgin bride. He says, "Fact is, it would be easier to find an honest lawyer that it is to find a virgin!" I can also recall reactions to an advertisement flighted on Zimbabwe-s local station promoting abstinence. Depicting a young man who refuses the sexual advances of his female counterparts because he believes that a real man waits, the advertisement has always met with a rolling eye or suppressed laughter among my peers. Virginity, especially male virginity, is often looked at as humanly impossible, or as a sign of weakness and at worst, physical deformity.

While abstinence does not necessarily equate to virginity, the two work together in the fight against HIV. Abstaining from sex is acknowledged as the only foolproof method of avoiding transmitting the virus that causes AIDS. This stance is often challenged by those who believe that abstinence-until-marriage programmes, such as those championed by the United States government, do more to fuel than stem the spread of HIV. They say such programmes do so because they ignore the importance of condom use for those who cannot delay the onset of sexual activity. As such, people who argue this view place more emphasis on the nature of human sexuality and advocate for a holistic approach to HIV prevention interventions that includes accepting that not everyone will wait until marriage for their first sexual encounter, therefore addressing their specific needs.

Finally, I return to the article that began this whole debate. Discourse around virginity and its cultural, social and personal relevance will never end. Virginity remains a currency that people are either willing to hold onto for religious, customary or personal reasons, or exchange for perceived benefits and gratification. A decision made either way should be well informed and above all, personal. It is a shameful injustice when an all-consuming pursuit of another-s virginity leads a man to rob a child of her own choice as to when and how she loses this status.

*Fungai Machirori is a trainee media professional with the Southern Africa HIV and AIDS Information Dissemination Service (SAfAIDS). She can be contacted at fungai@safaids.org.zw

Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.

TOP