It is apparent from the Guardian’s writings that where
Bahá’u’lláh has expressed a law as between a man and a woman it applies,
mutatis mutandis, between a woman and a man unless the context should make this
impossible. For example, the text of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas forbids a man to marry
his father’s wife (i.e., his stepmother), and the Guardian has indicated that
likewise a woman is forbidden to marry her stepfather. In the case you cite,
however, that of a wife who is found by her husband not to have been a virgin,
the dissolution of the marriage can be demanded only “If the marriage has been
conditioned on virginity”; presumably, therefore, if the wife wishes to
exercise such a right in respect to the husband, she would have to include a
condition as to his virginity in the marriage contract, and this would seem to
be one of those matters on which the Universal House of Justice will have to
legislate in due course.
- The Universal House of Justice (From a letter dated
April 28, 1974 to an individual believer; ‘Messages from the Universal House of
Justice 1963-1986’)
