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Ancient customs and ways may sound very foreign in today’s world, where sex acts among unmarried people has become quite common. However, God’s requirement for His people was that they were to be honest, upright, moral, and clean.
And anyone that chose to be unclean or immoral was to be put to death…
This is the reason why a woman’s proof of virginity became so important on her wedding night.
In ancient IsraEl, a father literally waited outside the nuptial chamber until the marriage was consummated, and he received the cloth upon which the couple laid, which held the blood of the woman’s virginity.
For this was the proof of her purity and the validity of the marriage.
To fail to do this would have left his daughter open to divorce…
And if she was not a virgin, to being stoned to death for her immorality.