DUSHANBE -- Suhrob spent years working on construction sites in Russia to save money for his dream wedding back in Tajikistan.
But just weeks after a lavish ceremony in his home village on the outskirts of Dushanbe, Suhrob, 30, took his 22-year-old bride to court, claiming she wasn't a virgin when they married and demanding that she reimburse the 50,000 somoni ($5,000) he spent for the wedding and dowry.
The bride and her family denied the accusation and countersued Suhrob for defamation, winning $1,000 in compensation for moral damages, according to documents obtained by RFE/RL from the Rudaki district court.
Suhrob has appealed the ruling.
"I didn't work in the freezing cold in Russia to save money to marry someone who isn't a virgin," says Suhrob, who asked that his full name not be published to protect his privacy. "I told her that I would have married someone else had I known this situation."
Premarital sex is deemed unacceptable in conservative, Muslim-majority Tajikistan, where women face a lifetime of shame if they are accused of not being a virgin on their wedding night.
There have been many scandals and court cases in the Central Asian country in recent years, involving young brides who were thrown out of their marital homes over virginity disputes.
In a high-profile case that shook the nation in 2017, an 18-year-old bride, Rajabbi Khurshed, took her own life after her 24-year-old new husband cast her out on their wedding night claiming that she wasn't a virgin.
Khurshed had been subjected to several invasive hymen examinations that -- according to doctors -- proved she hadn't had sexual intercourse, but the groom, Zafar Pirov, was adamant that the bride had bribed the medics.
Khurshed ended her life drinking what police said was a fatal dose of vinegar. Pirov was subsequently sentenced to seven years in prison for driving her to suicide.
Like many young couples from rural Tajikistan, Khurshed and Pirov -- both natives of the southern province of Khatlon -- hadn't met before their wedding, a common practice in a country where most marriages are arranged by families.
'Purity Tests'
Many young women in Tajikistan take a virginity test before their wedding to prove their chastity.
A virginity test is an optional part of a broader, mandatory medical examination in Tajikistan that all prospective brides and grooms must take before applying for a marriage license.
The government says the pre-wedding health checks, which were introduced in 2015, are aimed at preventing HIV/AIDS, hepatitis C, and other sexually transmitted infections and diseases.
Some prospective brides opt for the so-called purity test at their groom's request, while others take it voluntarily to prevent a scandal over virginity on their wedding night.
However, in a country where corruption is widespread, some men don't trust their bride's virginity certificate if she doesn't bleed on their wedding night.
The shame associated with not being a virgin has prompted some women to secretly undergo hymenoplasty, a surgical procedure to reconstruct the hymen.
Speaking on the condition of anonymity, a doctor at a private clinic in the Tajik capital of Dushanbe told RFE/RL that her clients pay up to $300 for the procedure in a desperate bid to protect their reputations.
Forced Virginity Tests
Rights activists have condemned the culture that demands virginity from women preparing for marriage as discriminatory.
"If a man demands his bride be a virgin, then he should have to prove his own purity too," says Larisa Aleksandrova, an expert at the Human Rights Center in Dushanbe. "If we expect [someone to adhere to local customs], we should all have to keep to the same standards."
While a purity test is optional in Tajikistan, authorities in the Central Asian country of Turkmenistan often force female teenagers to take virginity tests without asking the girls and their parents or guardians for consent.
The United Nations in 2018 called for virginity tests to be banned worldwide, saying they violate women's rights.
Not only that but many doctors argue that virginity tests don't even work. They are unreliable in determining if a person has had sexual intercourse or not, as different women have different anatomies and some women are born without a hymen.
