The common male desire for a virginal wife is quite simple biology -- it means that when the wife delivers a baby, it is more likely the man's rather than a former lover's. These days, if you don't trust your beloved's word, it's pretty easy:
Men who did not make sure that their beloved was a) a virgin, and b) not fooling around, often had the misfortune of thinking they were the father, when they were not (see: Howard K. Stern)
Unfortunately, in these modern times of easy and readily-available pregnancy and paternity tests, Muslim men still rely on the old methods of oppression and restriction, enforced by murdering those who women dare do otherwise.
Personally, I don't find any great attraction in a virgin -- you have to teach them everything. I'd rather be with somebody who can teach me a thing or two. But that's for a different thread...
I should clarify. I don't mean that ALL societies developed identically oppressive restrictions or used murder as punishment (although many did). Many were more subtle. A few were moderately enlightened. But most were pretty awful.
I'm rather proud that modern America is pretty enlightened, though the high degree of promiscuity of the past 40 years is a price we pay for that enlightenment not being tempered with self-discipline. One can hope, though, that it will come with time.
Before the invention of test tube babies, the only way to make babies was through sexual intercourse.
Does that mean we should also give up sexual intercourse in favor of more efficient technological methods?
I think not.
Because our psyches were formed by evolution to desire sex for a fulfilling life.
Just so, the psyches of most men and women would likely have been formed by evolution to place a premium on female chastity.
That is not to say that a culture might not brainwash many of its members into devaluing the chastity of women . . .
But that would be just another kind of repression--the kind of repression the sexual revolution has oppressed us with.