I've just stumbled across the discussion "Male Virginity and Circumcision," in sci.anthropology which now seems to be mostly about female virginity and circumcision. It seems somehow incomplete.
I think the problem is that the subject of female virginity is being handled as an evolutionary competition between two individuals, the wife and husband.
Going on my experience and reading it is that, but it is also much more. It is also the evolutionary competition between a young woman and her husband's kin group, especially his mother.
Anyone who doubts this has never lived in a traditional (these days read ethnic) society. The most savage and effective guardian of any male's paternity rights is his mother. Traditional males are often more scared of their mother finding out that they have been cuckolded than they are of the actual fact.
I know this is not PC, but in traditional and tribal societies it is often the male's mother who gives his wife the hardest time. It is she who insists on virginity, faithfulness, circumcision and the rest.
In traditional societies (both agricultural and hunter gatherer) she is continuously in the young wife's company, so is the one who can make it stick.
Combine this with traditional male suppression and it is hardly surprising that young women are so powerless in such societies.
Importantly, whatever the official story, older women who are successful mothers usually wield great power. Naturally, they have little interest in changing the status quo.
You don't even have to study tribal societies to find this. Those of us who belong to certain ethnic groups know the power of mothers all too well.
To understand why, and why a young woman in most tribal societies gets so little support from her own kin group, you have to take on board a basic fact about the structure of tribal societies that is still not fully accepted in academic circles.
Human and chimpanzee social structure is very different from other mammals, and from classical models. The strange thing is that it was not until chimpanzee social structure was studied that we began to appreciate our own. It seems the hardest thing to observe is yourself.
In tribal societies a stable group of usually closely related males holds a territory. Females generally move (or are brought) in from neighboring groups. Ok, there are exceptions, but this is the usual and most successful structure.
In most other mammals it is the female group that is stable, and the males that move in from outside.
The implications for human behavior are profound. In many primitive human cultures most males in a clan (sub group of a tribe) were related, in evolutionary terms the common good was almost as important to an individual as his own welfare.
Females on the other hand were often only related to their children. The result is still obvious; mother-son relationships are strong and lifelong in bonobos and most human cultures.
What this means is that if a mother allowed her sons to be cuckolded she was committing evolutionary suicide. She was going to be very, very rough on the daughters-in-law to prevent this. Remember, she was usually not related to them.
All his relatives had this motivation, though to a lesser degree. The young wife would find herself facing this Mafia alone as her relatives were usually in another tribe.
Of course, as soon as she had adult sons of her own all this changed.
Given that most males were related, (shared lots of genes) being cuckolded was less disastrous from their point of view. Besides, in many traditional societies there seemed to be a certain agreement among age-group males about reciprocal rights. "Hey! While I'm visiting your wife why don't you nip over and visit mine. She is always admiring your great ritual tattoos".
Once you add all this to the equation the whole virginity, circumcision
issue becomes more understandable, if no less unpleasant. It was
not just the husband that drove social and biological evolution
in this direction, but the dynamics of the whole system.