An Essential Quality

On the heels of the workplace topic of the week posted on Monday, I ran into an interesting article on the Atlanta Journal and Constitution website regarding an annulled Muslim marriage. The article link is provided below…

http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/stories//2008/09/23/virginity_lie_french.html

A Muslim couple who currently live in France had their marriage annulled in the court of law because the wife lied about being a virgin. According to the lower court, the annulment was justifiable because the wife misrepresented her ‘essential qualities’ to her husband. Of course I had to determine the definition of ‘essential qualities’ and have provided it below.

Essential Qualities – Basic, indispensable, or necessary elements of a person’s character or nature.

I sat at my desk in shock while reading this article and my homiletically stimulated mind began to turn apace. I thought to myself I wonder how many of today’s marriages would be overturned due to misrepresentation of ‘essential qualities?’ The most interesting aspect of this article centers on a marriage being annulled because of a person’s deceit regarding his/her physical ‘essential qualities,’ but I wonder how this could be applied to one’s spiritual or character ‘essential qualities.’

1. What areas do you think fall into the ‘essential qualities’ of a person? Is it love, success, money?
2. How many of us are being totally truthful about our ‘essential qualities?’
3. Do you think it’s fair to annul a marriage if you determine shortly into the marriage that the advertised ‘essential qualities’ of your mate were inaccurate?