In devoting a volume to the romance and folk-lore of Virginity, it may
not be inappropriate first to examine the psychology of a word and a
quality as magical as they are misused.
What is virginity? Is it the possession intact of that delicate
piece of membrane, the poets’ ‘_flos virginitatis_,’ or is it some
indescribable, intangible attribute in no sense dependent on physical
perfection? Does it imply abstention from and ignorance of all sexual
pleasures, or must it be a chastity which falls little short of stupid,
even criminal, innocence?
To us moderns, blessed (or cursed) with a smattering of science, woman
is virginal just as long as we know or believe her to be, physical
qualities notwithstanding. By the poet of the past, the romanticist,
the mediæval lover, and the ignorant, physical as well as spiritual
proofs were probably required or expected. To them, virginity was
something tangible; to us it is not.
Nor is the reason far to seek. For while Havelock Ellis, the greatest
authority on sexual psychology the world has known, describes the hymen
as having acquired in human estimation a spiritual value which has made
it far more than a part of the feminine body, ... “something that gives
woman all her worth and dignity, ... her market value,” he goes on to
point out that the presence or absence of the hymen is no real test of
virginity.
“There are many ways,” he writes, (_Studies in the Psychology of Sex_:
Philadelphia, 1914: vol. 5: _Erotic Symbolism_), “in which the hymen
may be destroyed apart from coïtus.... On the other hand, integrity of
the hymen is no proof of virginity, apart from the obvious fact that
there may be intercourse without penetration.... The hymen may be of a
yielding or folding type, so that complete penetration may take place
and yet the hymen be afterwards found unruptured. It occasionally
happens that the hymen is found intact at the end of pregnancy.”[1]
[1] Schurig, in the 17th century, notes a case of this kind. _C.f._
his _Gynæcologia_, where he speaks of a girl being pregnant without
losing her virginity. _Vide_ note, p. 100 post, where further details
of the life and works of this erudite physician will be found.
And while the foregoing is the exception rather than the rule, it goes
far to prove the fallibility of the physical, tangible test.
To most of us, virginity is a quality supposedly prized at all times
and by all races. This is far from the case. As Havelock Ellis points
out, (_op. cit._), virginity is not usually of any value among peoples
who are entirely primitive. “Indeed, even in the classic civilisation
which we inherit,” he writes, “it is easy to show that the virgin and
the admiration for virginity are of late growth; the virgin goddesses
were not originally virgins in our modern sense. Diana was the
many-breasted patroness of childbirth before she became the chaste and
solitary huntress, for the earliest distinction would appear to have
been simply between the woman who was attached to a man and the woman
who followed an earlier rule of freedom and independence; it was a
later notion to suppose that the latter women were debarred from sexual
intercourse.”
A French Army Surgeon, Dr. Jacobus X--, (_Untrodden Fields of
Anthropology_: Charles Carrington: Paris, 1898), has some interesting
remarks on the subject, and we offer no apology for reproducing them at
length. Writing on the “Unimportance of the signs of virginity in the
negress,” he says:--
“The Negroes of Senegal do not attach, as the Arabs do, considerable
importance to the presence of the real signs of virginity in young
girls.... The non-existence of the material proofs of virginity seldom
give rise to any complaint on the part of the husband.... Moreover,
the size of the virile member of the Negro[2] renders it difficult for
him to detect any trick. The black bride, on the wedding night, shows
herself expert in the art of simulating the struggles of an expiring
virginity, and it is considered good taste for the girls to require
almost to be raped. The least innocent young women are often the most
clever at this game.
[2] Sir Richard Burton, (_The Thousand Nights and a Night_),
describes how he measured in Somaliland a negro’s _penis_, which,
when quiescent, was six inches long; this organ, however, would not
increase proportionately when in erection.
“Thus, throughout nearly all Senegal, the European, who has a taste for
maidenheads, can easily be satisfied, provided he is willing to pay
the price.[3] At St. Louis women of ill-fame procure young girls, who
bear the significant name of the ‘unpierced,’[4] and vary from eight
or nine years to the nubile age. It is even easier to obtain a young
girl before she is nubile than afterwards, on account of the certainty
of her not bearing any children. The price is within the range of
all purses, according to quality, and you can have a negro girl,
warranted ‘unpierced’ (belonging to the category of domestic slaves),
for the modest sum of from eight to sixteen shillings. Of course, the
respectable matron pockets half this sum for her honorarium....
[3] A celebrated Parisian courtesan used to boast, according to
Mantegazza, that she had “sold her virginity” on 82 different
occasions! _Vide_ _Curious Bypaths of History_: Carrington: Paris,
1898, for further details on this subject.--Note by Dr. Jacobus X--.
[4] _C.f._ _The Thousand Nights and a Night_, (Sir Richard F. Burton;
the privately printed and uncastrated editions), where the expression
is common. “ ... He found her a pearl unpierced.” Again: “ ... went
in unto the Princess and found her jewel which had been hidden, an
union pearl unthridden, and a filly that none but he had ridden....”
Compare, also, the French erotic slang percer (to pierce), signifying
the act of sexual intercourse. (Farmer: _Slang and its Analogues_, p.
25, vol. 6; _Vocabula Amatoria, etc._)
“ ... The ‘unpierced’ soon lose their right to the title when they
have to do with a Toubab, but, on account of the size of their genital
parts, the loss of their maidenhead is not such a serious affair for
them as it would be for a little French girl who was not yet nubile.
I have never remarked in a little negress, who had been deflowered
by a White, the valvular inflammation, which, with us, is noticed as
the result of premature copulation before the parts are sufficiently
developed.... If the reader will remember that the European, who is
below the average dimensions in regard to his _penis_, is like a little
boy in proportion to the negress of ten or twelve years old, it is not
difficult to imagine that the negress he has deflowered can entirely
take in the yard of the White, the dimensions of which are much less
than that of the adult black.
“ ... When the girl has to do later with a negro husband, an astringent
lotion will render the bride a pseudo-virgin. The deceived husband, not
having the anatomical knowledge necessary to assure himself of the real
existence of the signs of virginity, feels a difficulty in copulating,
and is far from suspecting any trick.[5]
[5] “The Chinese ... have discovered a way of forming a new virginity
when by some accident that object has gone astray. The method consists
in astringent lotions applied to the parts, the effect of which so
draws them together that a certain amount of vigour is required
in order to pass through, the husband--on a nuptial night--being
convinced that he has overcome the usual barrier. To make the illusion
more complete, a leech-bite is made just inside the critical part, and
the little wound is plugged with a minute pellet of vegetable tinder,
with the result that the effort made by the husband to overcome the
difficulty displaces the pellet and a slight flow of blood ensues.”
(_Curious Bypaths of History_, _op. cit. sup._) That this method
is by no means peculiar to the Chinese is instanced by Brantôme in
his _Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies_ (Paris: Carrington, 1901:
first English translation), where the genial old soldier-philosopher
says:--“How clever these doctors be! for they do give women remedies
to make them appear virgin and intact as they were afore.... One such
especially I learned of a quack these last few days. Take leeches and
apply to the privy parts, getting them to drain and suck the blood
in that region. Now the leeches, in sucking, do engender and leave
behind little blebs or blisters full of blood. Then when the gallant
bridegroom cometh on his marriage night to give assault, he doth burst
these same blisters and the blood discharging from them; the thing is
all bathed in gore, to the great satisfaction of both the twain; for
so ‘the honour of the citadel is saved.’”
“Does not much the same kind of thing prevail also in Europe? How
many girls who have been deflowered get married without their husband
ever suspecting anything, although he has not the same physical
disadvantages that the black has to prevent his seeing through the
trick? Is it to this amorous blindness that the Greeks and Romans
alluded when they represented Cupid with a bandage over his eyes? One
is almost tempted to believe it.
“ ... In opposition to those who exact the virginity of the bride,
there are others who attach no importance whatever to it.... The
ancient Egyptians used to make an incision in the hymen previous to
marriage, and St. Athanasius relates that among the Phœnicians a slave
of the bridegroom was charged by him to deflower the bride.[6] The
Caraib Indians attached no value to virginity, and only the daughters
of the higher classes were shut up during two years previous to
marriage.
[6] “That this eagerness after virginity is not an original lust,
I must, indeed, prove from the opinion of a certain remote people,
who esteem the taking of a maidenhead as a laborious and illiberal
practice, which they delegate to men hired for that purpose, ere
themselves condescend to lie with their wives; who are returned with
disgrace to their friends, if it be discovered that they have brought
their virginity with them.”--_The Battles of Venus_: The Hague, 1760,
quoted by Pisanus Fraxi in his _Index Librorum Prohibitorum_. _Vide_
also _post_ in this Study.
“It appears that among the Chibcha Indians in Central America virginity
is not at all esteemed; it was considered to be a proof that the maiden
had never been able to inspire love.
“In ancient Peru the old maids were the objects of high esteem. There
were sacred virgins called ‘Wives of the Sun,’ somewhat similar to
the Roman vestals.[7] (The nuns of the present day, do they not style
themselves the ‘Spouses of Christ’?). They made a vow of perpetual
chastity.... It is also said they were buried alive when they happened
to break their vow of chastity, unless indeed they could prove having
conceived, not from a man, but from the sun.
[7] “Now as to these vows of virginity, Heliogabalus did promulgate a
law to the effect that no Roman maid, not even a Vestal Virgin, was
bound to perpetuate virginity, saying how that the female sex was
over weak for women to be bound to a pact they could never be sure of
keeping.” (Brantôme: _Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies_.) The author
of this edict was not without a knowledge of sexual psychology, for
we have ample evidence that some of the Vestals failed in their duty,
which was, nominally, to guard the sacred fire and the Holy Things
of Rome. “Far up by Porta Pia,” says F. Marion Crawford (_Ave Roma
Immortalis_: London, 1903), “over against the new Treasury, under a
modern street, lie the bones of guilty Vestals, buried living, each
in a little vault two fathoms deep, with the small dish and crust and
the earthen lamp that soon flickered out in the close, damp air.”
Vestal Virgins had many privileges denied to other Roman women; they
were free for life; they had a right to be present at the Emperor’s
games; and they were treated with marked respect by the highest in the
land. That the privileges of virginity did not necessarily make for
the owner’s happiness is instanced by Brantôme’s grim story. “Maids
and virgins,” he writes (_Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies_), “would
seem in old days at Rome to have been highly honoured and privileged,
so much so that the law had no jurisdiction over them to sentence them
to death. Hence the story we read of a Roman Senator in the time of
the Triumvirate, which was condemned to die among other victims of the
Proscription, and not he alone, but all the offspring of his loins. So
when a daughter of his house did appear on the scaffold, a very fair
and lovely girl, but of unripe years and yet a virgin, ‘twas needful
for the executioner to deflower her himself and take her maidenhead
on the scaffold, and only then when she was so polluted, could he ply
his knife upon her. The Emperor Tiberius did delight in having fair
virgins thus publicly deflowered, and then put to death,--a right
villainous piece of cruelty, pardy!”
“Several authors worthy of credence assure us that these vestals were
guarded by eunuchs. The temple at Cuzco had one thousand virgins, that
of Caranqua two hundred. It would appear, however, that the virginity
of these vestals was not so very sacred after all, for the Inca Kings
used to choose from among them concubines for themselves or for their
principal vassals and favourite friends.
“Marco Polo narrates how young girls were exposed by their mothers on
the public highway in order that travellers might freely make use of
them.[8] A young girl was expected to have at least twenty presents
earned by such prostitutions before she could hope to find a husband.
This did not prevent them from being very virtuous after marriage, nor
their virtue from being much appreciated.[9]
[8] _C.f._ Herodotus, who tells us that in the fifth century before
Christ every woman, once in her life, had to come to the temple of
Mylitta, the Babylonian Venus, and yield herself to the first stranger
who threw a coin in her lap, in worship of the goddess. The money
could not be refused, however small the amount, but it was given as
an offertory to the temple, and the woman, having followed the man
and thus made oblation to Mylitta, returned home and lived chastely
ever afterwards. (Havelock Ellis: _Studies in the Psychology of Sex_:
vol. 6: _Sex in Relation to Society_.) Havelock Ellis has quoted
Herodotus in relation to prostitution, holding that its origin is to
be found primarily in religious custom. In our opinion, the practice
also merits inclusion in a catalogue of virginal folk-lore, and we are
further justified in our view by the statement that the woman who so
yielded herself lived chastely ever afterwards.
[9] “In old times we read of a custom in the isle of Cyprus, which
‘tis said the kindly goddess Venus, the patroness of that land, did
introduce. This was that the maids of that island should go forth
and wander along the banks, shores and cliffs of the sea, for to
earn their marriage portions by the generous giving of their bodies
to mariners, sailors and seafarers along that coast. These would
put in to shore on purpose, very often indeed turning from their
straight course by compass to land there; and so taking their pleasant
refreshment with them, would pay handsomely, and presently hie them
away again to sea, for their part only too sorry to leave such good
entertainment behind. Thus would these fair maids win their marriage
dowers, some more, some less, some high, some low, some grand, some
lowly, according to the beauty, gifts and carnal attractions of each
damsel.” (Brantôme: _Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies_.)
“Waitz assures us that in several countries of Africa a young girl
is preferred for wife when she has made herself remarked by several
amours and by much fecundity. (_C.f._ Havelock Ellis, _op. cit._,
vol.6: ‘Equally unsound is the notion that the virgin bride brings
her husband at marriage an important capital which is consumed in the
first act of intercourse and can never be recovered. That is a notion
which has survived into civilisation, but it belongs to barbarism and
not to civilisation. So far as it has any validity it lies within a
sphere of erotic perversity which cannot be taken into consideration
in an estimation of moral values. For most men, however, in any case,
whether they realise it or not, the woman who has been initiated into
the mysteries of love has a higher erotic value than the virgin,[10]
and there need be no anxiety on this ground concerning the wife who has
lost her virginity.’)
[10] “I am not surprised if the Phœnicians, according to St.
Athanasius, obliged their daughters, by severe laws, to suffer
themselves before marriage to be deflowered by valets, or also that
the Armenians, as Strabo relates, sacrificed their daughters in the
temple of the Goddess Anaitis, with the object of being eased of
their maidenheads, so as to be able afterwards to find advantageous
marriages suited to their condition; for one cannot describe what
exhaustion and what sufferings a man has to undergo in his first
action, at all events if the girl be narrow.... It is far sweeter to
have connection with a woman accustomed to the pleasures of love than
to caress one who has not yet known a man; for as we ask a locksmith
to ease the wards of a new lock he brings us, to save us the trouble
we might have the first day, so had the nations of whom we spoke good
reason for establishing such laws.” (Nicolas Venette: _La Génération
de L’Homme, ou Tableau de L’Amour Conjugal_: Paris, 1751.)
“It was impossible,” continues Dr. Jacobus X--, “ever to find the signs
of virginity among the Machacura women in Brazil, and Feldner explains
the reason thus:--
“‘Among them a virgin is never to be found, for this reason: that the
mother from her daughter’s tenderest years endeavours with the utmost
care to remove all tightness of the vagina and obstacle therein. With
this end in view, the leaf of a tree folded in the shape of a funnel
is held in the right hand, then while the index finger is introduced
into the genital parts and worked to and fro, warm water is admitted by
means of the funnel.’ (_Journey Across Brazil_, 1828.)
“Among the Sakalaves in Madagascar the young girls deflower themselves,
when the parents have not previously seen to this necessary preparation
for marriage.
“Among the Balanti of Senegambia, one of the most degraded races in
Africa, the girls cannot find a husband until they have been deflowered
by their King, who often exacts costly presents from his female
subjects for putting them in condition to be able to marry.
“Barth, (1856), in describing Adamad, says that the chief of the Bagoli
used to lie the first night with the daughters of the Fulba, a people
under his sway. Similar facts are related of the aborigines of Brazil
and of the Kinipeto Esquimaux.
“Demosthenes informs us that there was a celebrated Greek hetaira,
named Mæra, who had seven slaves whom she called her daughters, so that
being supposed to be free a higher price was paid for their favours.
She sold their virginity five or six times over, and ended by selling
the whole lot together.
“The god Mutinus, Mutunus or Tutunus of ancient Rome used to have
the new brides come and sit upon his knees, as if to offer him their
virginity. St. Augustine says: ‘In the celebration of nuptials the
newly wed bride used to be bidden sit on the shaft of Priapus.’
Lactantius gives more precise details: ‘And Mutunus, in whose shameful
lap brides sit, in order that the god may appear to have gathered
the first-fruits of their virginity.’ It appears, however, that this
offering was not merely symbolical, for when they had become wives,
they used to return to the favourite deity to pray for fecundity.[11]
[11] “According to Festus, _Mutinus_ is a god differing wholly from
Priapus, having a public sanctuary at Rome, where the statue was
placed sitting with _penis_ erect. Newly mated girls were placed
in his lap, before being led away to their husbands, so that the
deity might appear to have foretasted their virginity, this being
supposed to render the bride fruitful.” (_Priapeia_: Cosmopoli, 1890.)
Schurig (_Gynæcologia_: _op. cit. sup._) instances the Indian custom
of deflowering young brides by means of an enormous priapus in the
temples.
“Arnobius also asks: ‘Is it Tutunus, on whose huge organs and bristling
tool you think it an auspicious and desirable thing that your matrons
should be mounted?’
“Pertunda was another hermaphrodite divinity that St. Augustine
maliciously proposed rather to name the _Deus Pretundus_ (who strikes
first); it was carried on to the nuptial bed to aid the bridegroom:
‘Pertunda stands there ready in the bed-chamber for the aid of husbands
excavating the virgin pit.’ (Arnobius.)
“The Kondadgis (Ceylon), the Cambodgians, and other peoples charged
their priests with the defloration of their brides.
“Jager communicated to the Berlin Anthropological Society a passage
from Gemelli Cancri, which mentions a _stupratio officialis_[12]
practised at a certain period among the Bisayos of the Philippine
Islands: ‘There is no known example of a custom so barbarous as that
which had been there established, of having public officials, and even
paid very dearly, to take the virginity of young girls, the same being
considered to be an obstacle to the pleasures of the husband. As a fact
there no longer exists any trace of this infamous practice since the
establishment of the Spanish rule, ... but even to-day a Bisayo feels
vexed to find his wife safe from suspicion, because he concludes, that
not having excited the desire of anyone, she must have some bad quality
which will prevent him from being happy with her.’
[12] _i.e._, a legalised defilement or ravishing. Blondeau, in
his _Dictionnaire érotique latin-français_ (Liseux: Paris, 1885),
translates _stupratio_ as “a combat in which one forces a beauty to
yield to one’s passion ... to take possession of the honour of some
pretty woman ... the struggle in which women succumb with pleasure.”
_Stupro_, the verb; _stuprator_, the noun; and _stupratus_, the
adjective have kindred meanings.
“On the Malabar Coast, also, there were Brahmins whose only religious
office was to gather the virgin flower of young girls. These latter
used to pay them for it, without which they could not find husbands.
The King of Calicut himself used to grant the right of the first night
to a Brahmin; the King of Tamassat grants it to the first stranger who
arrives in the town; whereas the King of Campa reserves to himself
the _jus primæ noctis_[13] for all the marriages in the kingdom. (_De
Gubernatis, Histoire des voyageurs italiens aux Indes Orientales_:
Livourne, 1875.)
[13] An old established practice whereby newly married women are
deflowered by others than their husbands, whether by priest, lord, or
stranger. To discuss this relic of feudalism would be beyond the scope
of a note; it is summed up briefly in the idea that the lord of a
domain was entitled to exact tribute from his subjects in the form of
intercourse with every bride on the first night of her marriage. Our
readers are referred to Dr. Karl Schmidt’s _Jus Primæ Noctis (The Law
of the First Night)_, the most comprehensive treatise on the subject.
“Warthema says that the King of Calicut, when he took a wife, chose
the most worthy and learned Brahmin to deflower the maiden; for this
service he received from 400 to 500 crowns. At Tenasserim fathers used
to beg of their daughters to allow themselves to be deflowered by
Christians or Mohammedans.
“Pascal de Andagoya, who visited Nicaragua between 1514 and 1522,
says that it was usual for a grand-priest to lie during the first
night with the bride, and Oviedo, (1535), speaking of the Acovacks
and other American nations, relates that the wife, in order that the
marriage should be happy, passed the first nuptial night with the
priest or _piache_, and Gomarra, (1551), relates the same thing of the
inhabitants of Cumana.
“In Europe, young girls who are not very virtuous, and who have studied
all the various forms of flirtation, are most generally passed off as
virgins when they marry. Even when it does not really exist, there are
many ways by which a virginity--which perhaps has been sold over and
over again by expert and clever procuresses--can be simulated. A little
time before going to the nuptial bed, the girl inserts into her vagina
a few drops of pigeon’s blood; or in some cases she selects for her
wedding day the last day of menstruation. A sponge, skilfully placed,
allows the blood to flow at the moment of the catastrophe, when a
sudden ‘Oh!’ announces to the unsuspecting husband that the temple has
been violated for the first time, and that the veil of the _sanctum
sanctorum_ has really been rent by him. Add also to these methods
injections so astringent that, at the required time, they will give to
a prostitute, whose gap has been widened by a thousand customers, a
tightness greater than that of a real virgin.”
The more one examines the question, the more one is convinced that
virginity or chastity has come to be regarded as a spiritual and
moral asset only in civilised, or comparatively civilised, society.
“In considering the moral quality of chastity among savages,” writes
Havelock Ellis (_Studies in the Psychology of Sex_, vol. 6, p. 147),
“we must carefully separate that chastity which among semi-primitive
peoples is exclusively imposed upon women. This has no moral quality
whatever, for it is not exercised as a useful discipline, but merely
enforced in order to heighten the economic and erotic value of women.
“Many authorities believe that the regard for women as property
furnishes the true reason for the widespread insistence on virginity in
brides. Thus A. B. Ellis, speaking of the West Coast of Africa (_Yoruba
Speaking Peoples_, pp. 183 _et seq._), says that girls of good class
are betrothed as mere children, and are carefully guarded from men,
while girls of lower class are seldom betrothed, and may lead any life
they choose.”
Virginity in woman, it seems, has been set on a pedestal unsupported
by history, science, or investigation. It is obviously the outcome
of man’s desire, when he buys or acquires, to obtain unsoiled goods.
Comes a time, however, when the value of these so-called unsoiled
goods grows questionable. Something virgin, in terms of common sense,
is not necessarily something valuable; here enters the thinking, and,
ultimately, the erotic, element. Let a man fall to asking why he
demands virginity, and he will speedily begin to realise that it is the
last thing he requires. Virginity spells ignorance, awkwardness and
obstacles; maturity means understanding and co-operation. Thus, by easy
stages, we reach the conclusion, mentioned by Havelock Ellis and quoted
above, that for most men, whether they realise it or not, the love-wise
woman has a greater erotic value than the virgin.[14]
[14] Brantôme, of course, has some pertinent remarks on the subject.
In his _Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies_, he devotes the seventh
_Discourse_ to the following topic: _Concerning married women, widows
and maids,--to wit, which of these same be better than other to love_.
“One day,” writes the genial philosopher, “when I was at the Court of
Spain at Madrid, and conversing with a very honourable lady, ... she
did chance to ask me this question following:--’Which of the three had
the greater heat of love: widow, wife or maid?’ After myself had told
her mine opinion she did in turn give me hers in some such terms as
these: ‘That albeit maids, with all that heat of blood that is theirs,
be right well disposed to love, yet do they not love so well as wives
and widows. This is because of the great experience of the business
the latter have, and the obvious fact that supposing a man born blind,
... he can never desire the gift of sight so strongly as he that has
sweetly enjoyed the same a while and then been deprived of it.’”
Later, quoting Boccaccio, Brantôme also says:--“The widow is more
painstaking of the pleasure of love an hundred fold than the virgin,
seeing the latter is all for dearly guarding her precious virginity
and maidenhead. Further, virgins be naturally timid, and above all in
this matter, awkward and inept to find the sweet artifices and pretty
complaisances required under divers circumstances in such encounters.
But this is not so with the widow, who is already well practised, bold
and ready in this art, having long ago bestowed and given away what
the virgin doth make so much ado about giving.... Beside all this,
the maid doth dread this first assault of her virginity, ... whereas
widows have no such fear, but do submit themselves very sweetly and
gently, even when the assailant be of the roughest.”
Quoting Westermarck (_History of Human Marriage_), he goes on to refer
to the fact that the seduction of an unmarried girl “is chiefly, if not
exclusively, regarded as an offence against the parents or family of
the girl,” and there is no indication that it is ever held by savages
that any wrong has been done to the woman herself.
“Westermarck realises at the same time,” adds Havelock Ellis, “that
the preference given to virgins has also a biological basis in the
instinctive masculine feeling of jealousy in regard to women who have
had intercourse with other men, and especially in the erotic charm for
men of the emotional state of shyness which accompanies virginity.”
Here, in all probability, are the most powerful reasons for the value
placed on virginity; each reason, too, is highly practical. Who
among us truly wants to share his most treasured possession? And the
shy charm of virginity ‘neath the attack of the amorous lover is as
undeniable as it is indescribable. Hence the virgin’s lure for the old
and worn-out roué, who finds in her shrinking reluctance a stimulant
to his erotic prowess which sympathy, boldness, even lewdness, have
no power to furnish. That quaint old book, “_Memoirs of a Woman of
Pleasure_,” (London, 1780), gives a typical account of the attempt and
failure of an aged rake to ravish the then virginal heroine of the
story.[15]
[15] We can supplement these remarks by a further quotation from that
curious work already noticed, _The Battles of Venus_, wherein we read:
“This lust, then, after the _untouched_ morsel, I take not to be an
original dictate of nature; but consequently to result from much
experience with women, which has been demonstrated to lead to novelty
of wishes from fastidious impotence.... Yet, in truth, I esteem the
fruition of a virgin to be, with respect both to the mind and body of
the enjoyer, the highest aggravation of sensual delight. In the first
place, his fancy is heated with the prospect of enjoying a woman,
after whom he has perhaps long sighed and has been in pursuit, who
he thinks has never before been in bed with a man, (in whose arms
never before has man laid), and in triumphing in the first sight
of her virgin charms. This precious operation, then, of fancy, has
been shown in the highest degree to prepare the body for enjoyment.
Secondly, his body perceives, in that of a virgin, the cause of the
greatest aggravation of delight. I mean not only in the coyness and
resistance which she makes to his efforts, but when he is on the point
of accomplishing them: when arrived, as the poet sings, ‘on the brink
of giddy rapture,’ when in pity to a tender virgin’s sufferings, he is
intreated not to break fiercely in, but to spare ‘fierce dilaceration
and dire pangs.’ The resistance which the small, and as yet unopened,
mouth of bliss makes to his eager endeavours, serves only, and that
on a physical principle, to strengthen the instrument of his attack,
and concurs, with the instigation of his ardent fancy, to reinforce
his efforts, to unite all the co-operative powers of enjoyment, and
to produce an emission copious, rapid, and transporting.... ‘In
this case, part of the delight arises from considering that ... you
feel the convulsive wrigglings of the chaste nymph you have so long
adored....’” Our acknowledgements are again due to Pisanus Fraxi,
from whose _Index Librorum Prohibitorum_ our extract is taken. The
author of _The Battles of Venus_, it need hardly be said, is in no
sense an authority; his work, indeed, is pornographic rather than
artistic; at the same time, it is impossible to ignore his flashes of
insight into a question which has exercised the minds of the greatest
psychologists.
At certain times and with certain peoples the virgin maid has been
fenced about with all manner of safeguards up to the very hour of her
marriage; but have these and other peoples ever troubled to preserve
the virginity of their daughters as they were at pains to guard the
chastity of their wives? What nation ever inflicted that ghastly
contrivance, the Girdle of Chastity, upon its virgin daughters? This
bar to erotic pleasure was reserved exclusively for the potentially
froward wife.
Originating in the woollen band worn by the Spartan virgins[16]--a
garment removed for the first time by the husband on the wedding
night--these Girdles of Chastity, with their padlocks and keys, were
undoubtedly in use in the fourteenth or fifteenth century, and in use
for an unmistakable purpose. “The first to employ this apparatus,” says
Dr. Jacobus X--(_Ethnology of the Sixth Sense_: Charles Carrington:
Paris, 1899), “was Francis of Tarrara, Provost of Padua in the
fourteenth century. It was a belt having a central piece made of ivory,
with a barbed narrow slit down the middle, which was passed between
the legs and fixed there by lock and key. A specimen of this safety
apparatus is to be seen actually at the Musée de Cluny in Paris.”
[16] Brantôme, apparently, had a poor opinion of Spartan virginity.
“What kind of virtue was it?” he asks. (_Lives of Fair and Gallant
Ladies._) “Why! on their solemn feast-days the Spartan maids were
used to sing and dance in public stark naked with the lads, and even
wrestle in the open market place,--the which however was done in all
honesty and good faith, so History saith. But what sort of honesty and
purity was this, we may well ask, to look on at these pretty maids so
performing publicly? Honesty was it never a whit, but pleasure in the
sight of them, and especially of their bodily movements and dancing
postures, and above all in their wrestling; and chiefest of all when
they came to fall one atop of the other, as they say in Latin: ‘She
underneath, he atop; he underneath, she atop.’ You will never persuade
me ‘twas all honesty and purity herein with these Spartan maidens. I
ween there is never chastity so chaste that would not have been shaken
thereby, or that, so making in public and by day these feint assaults,
they did not presently in privity and by night and on assignation
proceed to greater combats and night attacks.”
Dr. Caufeynon, the great authority on the subject, believes, however,
that these girdles only date from the Renaissance.[17] In his
remarkable little work, _La Ceinture de Chasteté_ (Paris, 1904), which
contains numerous engravings and photographic designs, he gives an
illustration of the specimen in the Musée de Cluny. Quoting Brantôme
(_Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies_), he adds:--
[17] Havelock Ellis, _op. cit._, vol. 6: _Sex in Relation to Society_,
p. 163.
“In the time of Henry the king there lived an ironmonger who brought to
the fair of St. Germain a dozen of certain machines to bridle the parts
of women; they were fashioned of iron and went round like a girdle, and
went below and were closed with a key. So cleverly were they fashioned
that it was not possible for the women, when once bridled, to arrive at
the sweet pleasure, there being but a few small holes in it for pissing.
“‘Tis said there were five or six jealous husbands, who bought these
machines and bridled their wives with them in such fashion that they
might well have said ‘Farewell, happy time,’ had there not been one who
bethought her of applying to a locksmith very skilled in his art, to
whom she showed the machine, her own, her husband being then out in the
fields; and he applied his mind so well to the matter that he made for
her a false key, with which the lady opened or closed the machine at
any time and when she willed.
“The husband never discovered aught to say on the matter; and the lady
gave herself up to her own good pleasure, despite her foolish, jealous,
cuckold husband, being ever able to live in the freedom of cuckoldom.
But the wicked locksmith who fashioned the false key tasted of it all;
and he did well, so they say, for he was the first to taste of it.
“They say, too, that there were many gallant and honest gentlemen
of the court who threatened that ironmonger with death did he ever
presume to carry about such merchandise; so much so that he was afraid
and returned no more and threw away all the rest, and no more was heard
of. Wherein he was wise, for it were enough to lose half the world,
for want of any body to people it, through such bridles, clasps and
fastenings of a nature abominable and detestable and enemies to human
multiplication.”
The troubadour Guillaume de Machault speaks of a key given to him by
Agnes of Navarre; this key was obviously intended to unlock a girdle
of chastity. Nicolas Chorier, in his erotic _Dialogues of Luisa Sigea_
(Paris: Isidore Liseux, 1890), mentions the apparatus. Although the
existence of such girdles has often been denied, “the presence of
many undoubted specimens in several of the most important museums
of Europe,” says Dr. Jacobus X--(_Ethnology of the Sixth Sense_),
“places their authenticity beyond all doubt. This custom existed more
particularly during the time of the Crusades, ... but a very curious
instance is mentioned as having occurred as late as the middle of
the eighteenth century, for it is recorded that the advocate Feydeau
pleaded before the supreme court of Montpellier on behalf of a woman
who accused her husband of making her undergo this shameful treatment.
(_Petition against the introduction of padlocks or girdles of chastity,
Montpellier, 1750._)”
All this only goes to show that virginity and chastity are two very
different things, and that the latter was obviously of more account
than the former in the eyes of mediæval man. Much the same obtains
to-day. To a certain extent we seek to preserve the virginity of our
daughters; but is there any limit to the precautions with which a
jealous husband will fence about his wife? In short, virginity concerns
alone her who loses it; is any man’s for the taking. Chastity is
another person’s property.
This slight survey of virginity would be incomplete without a reference
to the operation of infibulation[18]--the artificial adhesion of
the _labia majora_ by means of a ring or stitches with a view to
the prevention of sexual intercourse. Kisch, (_The Sexual Life of
Woman_: translated by M. Eden Paul: London: Wm. Heinemann), quotes the
authority of Ploss-Bartels for saying that this operation is practised
by many savage peoples, among them the Bedschas, the Gallas, the
Somalis, the inhabitants of Harrar, at Massaua, etc.
[18] _C.f._ the Latin _infibulare_=to clasp, buckle, or button
together. (Smith’s Latin-English dictionary.) The noun _fibula_ can be
translated: (1) a clasp, buckle, pin, latchet, brace; (2) a surgical
instrument for drawing together the edges of a gaping wound; (3) a
ring drawn through the prepuce to prevent copulation. Celsus, Martial
and Juvenal use the word in this sense. “The ancient Romans prevented
actors from copulating, with the object of preserving their voices.
Martial speaks of singers who sometimes broke the ring, and whom it
was necessary to bring back again to the blacksmith.” (Jacobus X--,
_op. cit._)
“The purpose of this practise,” he adds, “is to preserve the chastity
of the girls until marriage, when the reverse operative procedure
is undertaken. If the husband goes away on a journey, in many cases
the operation of infibulation is once more performed upon his wives.
Slave-dealers also make use of this operation so as to prevent their
slaves from becoming pregnant. It is reported, however, that the
operation does not invariably produce the desired effect.”
Nothing we have said or quoted, however, can alter the fact that
virginity has been and will always be a certain asset in civilised or
semi-civilised communities. There is a romance attached to the term
which neither cynicism nor materialism can kill. Incidentally, there is
a strong business side to the question. Who, as we said before, wants
to feel that his dearest possession has been shared by others? Who, in
more modern parlance, wants damaged goods?
While life lasts, the virgin maid will lure the normal lover, common
sense and cold facts notwithstanding. What the poet sang and the
amorous swain coveted in those by-gone times of pomp and paganism, in
the days of chivalry, and even in that dreary early Victorian era,
will be sung and coveted centuries hence. Science, new discoveries,
new theories, new ideals, new conditions, cannot oust human nature,
our undeniable birthright. The sanctity and value of virginity are
traditions; and, as Havelock Ellis says, in that singularly beautiful
postscript to his _Studies_, “there can be no world without traditions;
neither can there be any life without movement. As Heracleitus knew
at the outset of modern philosophy, we cannot bathe twice in the
same stream, though, as we know to-day, the stream still flows in an
unending circle. There is never a moment when the new dawn is not
breaking over the earth, and never a moment when the sunset ceases to
die. It is well to greet serenely even the first glimmer of the dawn
when we see it, not hastening toward it with undue speed, nor leaving
the sunset without gratitude for the dying light that once was dawn.
“In the moral world we are ourselves the light-bearers, and the cosmic
process is in us made flesh. For a brief space it is granted to us, if
we will, to enlighten the darkness that surrounds our path. As in the
ancient torch-race, which seemed to Lucretius to be the symbol of all
life, we press forward torch in hand along the course. Soon from behind
comes the runner who will outpace us. All our skill lies in giving into
his hand the living torch, bright and unflickering, as we ourselves
disappear in the darkness.”
Beautiful words, and fitting monument to a man who gave thirty years
of his life to the production of a work that will live for all time.
Hardly applicable to our present theme some, perhaps, will say. We
take leave to differ. In the relations between man and woman all life
is epitomised. Each bears the torch, and the race they run is the life
they lead. To almost all is granted the chance to hand on the torch in
living, breathing prototype.
Let us recognise new conditions, new ideas; let us welcome, examine
and weigh them, that none may say we do not ‘greet serenely the dawn.’
But let us also remember that theory cannot oust fact, nor materialism
human nature.
Down the ages man has altered in custom and habit, but in his spiritual
essence not at all. Save for local and racial differences, humanity has
shared the same passions of pain, sorrow, happiness, anger, laughter
and lust throughout all time. Human nature alone does not change; our
birthright is immutable. Human nature ever has, and ever will, set
store by virginity. It has become a tradition. And without tradition,
as the great psychologist has truly told us, there is no world.