After Family Axes Wedding Plan, Man Cuts Off Penis

A 25-year-old Egyptian man cut off his own penis to spite his family after he was refused permission to marry a girl from a lower class family, police reported today. After unsuccessfully petitioning his father for 2 years to marry the girl, the man heated up a knife and sliced off his reproductive organ. The young man came from a prominent family in the southern Egyptian province of Qena, one of Egypt's poorest and most conservative areas.

The man was rushed to the hospital but doctors were unable to reattach the severed member, the official added. He added that the man was still recovering in the hospital. Traditionally, marriages in these conservative part of southern Egypt are between similar social classes and often within the same extended families—and are rarely for love. (More Middle East stories.)