History of chastity

A permanent fight between real customs and will to control them
Controlling sexual behaviors is a constant habit in societies since the most remote times. Chastity, absence of sexual intercourse or solitary sexual practices or both, related to both sexes, but especially women and men dedicated to a worship, like certain single people. The requirement of chastity falls under logics of social maintenance of law and order by the clearness of filiation. When a child is born, there is no doubt about his mother, on the other hand, the biological father is not necessarily the same one as the husband. However, in the patriarchal societies, the concern of leaving a descent without ambiguity about the paternal origin partly explains the constraints to which women were subjected, and in particular the obligation of fidelity. However, it remains a deep shift between real habits and the models which requires the social maintenance of law and order. It would be hazardous to judge the moral standards state of any society while referring only to the models of constraints which it seeks to impose.

Antiquity, Stoics
In Greek Antiquity during 4th and 5th century before JC), the monogamic marriage is reference. Homere allots to its heroes only one wife, (and one or more concubines). The famous one Penelope, Ulysses’ wife, illustrate the model of the marital fidelity. The wife assures a legitimate descent, concubine is charged to take care of the execution of the domestic tasks, one and the other lives recluses in gynaeceum. Fidelity with the husband is required, indeed, in the event of obvious offense of adultery, the misled husband has the right to kill at once its rival, like his wife or his concubine. In stroke of the matrimonial institution, reign courtesans. Slave of an intermediary or free women , they occupy a special place in the Athenian society, the Athenian citizen who frequent courtesans thus affirms his virility and his wealth… …

http://www.idee-k.com/historiart/courtisanes.html

A very codified sexuality
The Greek society can appear rather tolerant about sexuality expression, in fact, it is very codified and especially very treated on a hierarchical basis. Chastity concerns only people devoted to a worship, or the girls belonging to aristocracy. It is however this same society which, through the Stoicism founded by Xenon of Kition (344-262 front JC), will bring the philosophical bases recoveries on its account Christian morals. http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoïcisme

The Romans of Antiquity apply in the broad outline the same constraints to the same people. Priestesses of Vesta make vow of chastity, and in the event of failure, are condemned to be buried alive, one do not joke with that!
Jacques Le Goff (Director of studies at the EHESS) explains: “As the advent of Christianity, the things change. A new sexual ethic, inspired of Stoicism is essential. The flesh, the body and the pleasure which they get are judged evil,a source of sin inspired by the Devil. While virginity becomes the ideal of the Church. For centuries, the Occident entered the era of repression. ”

http://www.idee-k.com/historiart/plaisir.html

From Church founders to the Middle Ages, Tertullian and Saint Augustinus
Among the fathers of the Church, one generally quotes Tertullien,son of a Roman centurion, born in Carthage around 150 (afterJC). Towards his 35 years age, he converts with Christianity and consequently will not cease carrying out a vehement combat in favor of a rigorous morals, that did not even require the authorities of its time. Tertullian wrote a particular famous text : “Exhortation to Chastity” .http://www.tertullian.org/index.htm

An ideal of living…
But, it is especially Saint Augustin (354-430) that will have a powerful philosophical thought about religion and its requirements. “O God, grant to me chastity, continence, but do not give it immediately to me”. He wrote in book VIII, 17. Chastity makes fear, it is presented like an ideal, a life style for believers.
In other words, the abstemious single person would be a model likely to enjoy God! But the Church in the absence of being able to impose chastity to everybody will develop little by little a strict framing of the sexual practices. Sacralization of the marriage, the amalgam between sexuality and the sin, between the body and the demon (finally especially the female body!!!!), a very precise nomenclature of the various sins of flesh and a calendar that establish times of chastity to which each one will have to subject. In the 4th century, Saint Ambroisus defines hierarchy of chastity: “There are three forms of chastity: the marriage, widowhood, virginity” (On the widows, Iv, 23). In same time, the pure silhouette of the virgin Marie, draped in her modest veils, starts to haunt the Christian imaginary landscape, not without a certain erotic ardor !

The Middle Ages: sexuality as a devil opus, leprosy like punishment of prohibited sexual practices
The Middle Ages will not add anything to these ideas, at most will attend one a development of the tools for control. The enquiry primarily aims at tracking the dissidents, the list of sexual sins lengthens with charges of sorcery and various and varied fornications, in particular with the demons as underlines it Chantal Lapointe in her book on sorcery.
http://www.idee-k.com/historiart/sorciere.htm

The hell is not enough…!
As the hell is not always enough to force the “fornicators”, another punishment threatens them seriously terrestrial life: leprosy. The disease is presented like a consequence of prohibited practices: homosexuality, sodomy, masturbation, copulation with the devils. Jacques Legoff explains: “… The disease becomes obsessional and make feel guilty, the disease-obsession whose plague will take over in the middle of the 14th century, leprosy receives its origin in guilty sexuality - including that of the couples, especially, perhaps, that of the husbands - the fornication sin involving flesh arises on the body surface. And as the flesh the original sin transmits, then children pay the fault of their parents. Then, there is this fixing of the excess of sexual licentiousness in the world the “illiterate ones”, the poor, peasants. In this world of warriors, the peasants are quasi-animals, toys bad desire. ” The Middle Ages, undoubtedly wrongly considered as a period of obscurantism and repression would be at the origin of a frightening tool to the service of chastity: famous belt. Several historians, and in particular Régine Pernoud, dispute this version and do not retain that the aspect symbolic system evoked by the poets (Marie de France and Guillaume de Machaut).
http://www.tpe.com/~altarboy/note0704.htm

the hedonism from Erasmus to Michel Onfray
Is the church eagerness to impose such a yoke of restrictions a answer to lax sexual habits ? Is it necessary to see only one of the aspects of a unrestrained search of power and expansion? We should not ignore that, in margin of the official speeches, some dispute movements are developed. The hedonist philosopher Michel Onfray, present thus “the Archipelago libertine baroque”: “free, lighted, daring, rational and critical. As much to say modern and precursory. Names? Pierre Gassendi, the Christian epicurean, Cyrano of Bergerac, the materialist hedonist, Saint-Évremond, the defender of Epicure, Fontenelle, the dismantler of the magic thought, François Mothe Vayer, the catholic skeptic - for to speak that these. Proof that there thus exists well in this century of the thoughts which further go than the usual old academic song. “
During centuries, various balances are observed, waves of relative tolerance, succeed to repression phases. Moreover, sexual morals standard is not the same for anybody: men and women are not equal when it is a question of judging adultery, rape, or crime. Currently, chastity remakes surface, in a kind of ideological and religious consensus, using same beliefs and generally accepted ideas emanating from a deep past suddenly given to the style of the day

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Chastity: ideological and religious convergences

Ideological and religious convergences : Christians, Moslems, Néocons

The chastity, hitherto understood like a practice reserved to the “devoted single people”, to priests, monks, and other nuns, is from now propelled in front of moral scene of our society. To seek explanations in the “drifts” of habits would be on the one hand too reducing, and on the other hand would lead us falling into often contestable logic from these moralizers tendancies. The exploration of Internet sites dedicated to chastity reveals convergences of ideas and principles, the speeches of the catholics like those of the Moslems, and various laic movements agree to see chastity as a panacea.

The “evil” body , and the pleasure refusal
Did we return to the Middle Ages? Or more exactly to a certain idea of it? Michel Volle writes in connection with the Church position about the sex and chastity: “Sexuality, instead of wealth became the Church enemy, only the reproductive use of the genital apparatus was encouraged.” Certainly, according to catechism, poverty is recommended; but no one has to be poor ". This restriction is never mentioned when one speaks about chastity. ”
http://www.volle.com
The pope Jean-Paul II whose worship came dangerously close to idolatry largely contributed to promote chastity, in particular near the young people; thus a control on its sexuality, to please God would be enough to be a good Christian.
Myriam Terlinden, author “To cohabit or To marry? “(editions of Emmanuel), writes “One confuses sometimes chastity and sexual continence. If thus there is not too much sorrow to imagine chastity for the single people, one wonders what that comes to do among married people! Indeed, chastity and the continence relate to sexuality, but differently: the continence indicates a practice, chastity a spirituality”.
http://www.fiancailles.net
These speeches evoke an extreme standardization of sexual life. The Church encourages a pure life which consist in abstaining from the “ disordered sex pleasures ”. Far from being an asset, chastity is an ideal to be reached, a conquest of each day, neither more nor less a vocation! Which unnamable practices hide under this delicious expression: “disordered sex pleasure ”? Do “ Correct sex pleasures” exist? Are they allowed, or is it necessary to give them up , and which recipes could make pleasures “correct”?

Islam is not much more permissive, one reads: “The marriage supplements the faith, saves seduction, helps to preserve one’s chastity and offers a means of satisfying one’s sexual desire. Adultery is not thus any more an option. ” and to quote with the support the sacred words: “The Prophet - peace and blessings on him - spoke about the marriage in these terms: “It makes it possible to fold back the glance and to preserve its chastity. ” It added: “Whoever is seen granting on behalf of God a virtuous woman must know that God helped to achieve half of his religion. That it then fears God for the achievement of the remaining half. ”
http://www.islamophile.org
However, Islam, more pragmatic, does not ignore nor contempt the importance of sexuality. Imam Al-Ghazâlî, philosophy soufi, scholar, born in Iran around 1058 (450 after H), often referred to, is the author of many texts founders, remarkable of intelligence and tolerance. He affirms: “The man should honor his wife at least once every four days. It is more equitable. Because the number of wives which can go up to four, it is allowed to delay the sex act with more up to four days. Yes, it is necessary that the husband achieves the act more or less often, according to the needs for his wife for satisfying her pleasure and preserve her chastity. To preserve the chastity of his wife is a duty for the man”.
http://www.islamophile.org
Now, there is a certain distance between the philosophical speech of the scholars and the directives which one seeks to apply to the people! Thus, one meets frequently a vehement popular, epic speech suitable for encourage the search of ideal. Chastity, tool of regulation of the behaviors is supposed to protect people against their own desires: depravity, decline, and sin. It is also a means of release, the man frees himself from his passions and of its defects, and, by doing this he’ll be given a ticket for the paradise… Chastity is thus a promise of cleanliness and of purity of the faith. It is a way of improvement which contributes to reinforce the honor of the man. “Thus, the hearts are strengthened to always remain in the achievement of the beautiful acts and the high behaviors which push to have the good high valued behaviors, like rising above the unimportant things and dishonor. ”
http://www.djibnet.com/

Will of control of the young people and the couples
The large gatherings around a spiritual leader as the Pope, engagement and the vehemence of the young recently converted Moslems, join not without irony, an American tendancy, which one could regard as an emanation of the groups known as “ neocons”. If the starting points are different, the conclusions meet on the obligation of chastity. The fascinating speech support on the faith succeed to remarks which want to justify their regulations by scientific “evidences”. The objectives are stated without ambiguity: “We want to speak about sexuality, such as it should be: beautiful and pure. We wish to address ourselves mainly with the young people. We also want to make adults think. We wish to sensitize parents, to train speakers and to influence those which programs of health and education decide in matter of sexuality.” The target is clearly identified: young people. It is advisable to frame them, to give them ideals, and to channel their energy…

All the means are good!

The author continues: “We teach the abstinence apart from the marriage. We believe that it is important that a couple engages while marrying before having sexual intercourse. We support our opinions on many research which shows that the people who take this advice are in better physical and mental health.”

http://www.chastete-quebec.com
Here is an information of the highest importance, the sexual life before the marriage could be a threat for mental health? The problem, it is that even after an exhaustive exploration of the site and its links did not make possible to find any tracks of these “many researches” and even less of the alleged evidence. Refers it with work of its Swiss fellow-member can be our preacher, Dr. Tissot, who, in 1760 condemns the masturbation as being responsible for innumerable diseases…

The puritan neocons movement
This movement, created by Dr. Michel Robillard, author of a book entitled “12 questions to be asked before making love”, addresses mainly the young people. Similarities with the European Catholics recommendations do not miss , however a more “American” touch is added. Indeed, the morals which recommends Dr. Robillard echoed the principles of “ neocons”. Like them, there is a will to react to the vagueness of sexual release of the Seventies, a disappointment vis-a-vis the successive failures of the American policy and its incapacity to dominate the world. Convinced that the American model is the best, certain representatives of the right wing of the democratic party, joined the rows of the republicans in the years 70-80. The movement neocons was born, it distinguish from the traditional conservatives by one voluntarist policy, in particular intended to durably establish the “benevolent” hegemony of the United States on the rest of the world.

Being afraid of sexuality
Export their design of the democracy is not enough, the neocons aim at imposing on the rest of the world their own vision of the culture and morals. Many religious sects are connected there, and many movements are claimed some, in particular those partisans of the prohibition of abortion. “We can avoid the errors of the past. ” Explains the organizer of Chastity-Quebec.com, before continuing: “We should not fear the return of an education centered on the fear of sexuality! By adopting a speech exempt of fanaticism and absolutism, as of excessive liberalism, we enter in the hard core of the debate. Today, decision of living according to the principle of chastity is not based on the fear of being punished by the family, civil or ecclesiastical authorities. It is about a personal choice based on reasonable reasons. ”

Giving one’s energy to serve a god, or an ideal, and fighting the evil in all its forms
Whether it is imposed in the name of a religion or a science, chastity is always presented like an ideal of living, and a fight against the evil. Religious people fight the sin, the vice, the disorder, with an objective of living in agreement with requirements of their god, or more precisely of those which speak on its behalf. Chastity pleased God, it is less what one can conclude from the assertions of the priest Daniel Ange: “The Church is never against a certain mode of sexual intercourse, it is for the love. Then, the saint man what sexuality explains is a chief of work of God and who for this reason, the role of the Church is to protect it… While prohibiting to make use of it? Partially yes! It is that the Church, if she wants to reconnect the body with the heart, however distinguishes the love from the sex… “To live a relation in love in chastity allows the love to go much deeper, and thus to remain all the more faithful. Early sexual intercourse short-circuit love in depth. Hundreds of thousands of young people who today choose, sometimes publicly, of living chastity until the marriage thus leave with their love the possibility of refining itself in thousand delicacies. ” It however was impossible to know with precision the number of volunteers on the way of chastity, even less the proportion on the whole of the population.
http://www.catholique.org

The sexually transmitted diseases are the punishment of behaviors rejected by religion.
But, religious people or laymen agree to indicate the sin: the sexually transmitted diseases, are then presented like the punitive wages of an illegitimate sexual life… And each one to hold up the threat of AIDS, to sow the doubt about the effectiveness of the condoms, and thus to conclude that chastity is the best answer… The evil, it is also and especially the concept of impurity, thus the Church condemns homosexuality and distinguishing two cases, perversity and tendency. First case is a great sin, the least second, he intention makes the difference . Homosexual the ” perverse one” assumes actively, while the other undergoes his (her) difference. The official speech wants that homosexuality is not created by God, but results from a difficult course of life. The idea it is that the person underwent an old trauma causing unconscious inhibitions who prevent from approaching the other sex… Thank you Freud! But, chastity once again will clear up the problem, and this of as much better than it will be a way of suffering: “A person who has a homosexual profile but who lives in chastity does not make any fault according to the religious eyes , he is member as well as others with of course the access to the sacraments. More especially as most of those which have this tendency he endures pain and suffering, and deserve compassion and respect. ”

Chastity as remedy for all the problems
These speeches can only challenge the young people in search of recognition, identity, of ideal, it seems however that there is a certain shift between the ideal of chastity and its real implementation. Doesn't the real/virtual distinction also apply to these individual choices? Is chastity preachers vehemence an answer to real or imaginary behaviors? And is the wave of engagements only one more pious wish? ?

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Sexual female mutilation, tools of chastity

 

A cruel tradition to ensure of virginity and fidelity of the woman
The fear of losing is without question one of the most powerful force powerful exerted on both individual and collectives choices, which is about what one has or that one believes to have. The goods, the grounds, the fatherland, pass still… But when one says “my wife”, “my fiance”, “my husband”, “my children”, that does not mean that one is owner what would imply that one could sell, exchange, acquire, women, husbands or children… However, this way of considering the relations, has not disappeared. Certain cultures only grant very little importance to the woman, they are regarded neither more nor less as slaves, and especially as uterus. In much of traditional societies, virginity of promised in marriage, is a priceless value which justify sacrifices, finally, especially on behalf of the girl. Thus, to make sure that virginity will be preserved until the marriage, and that total abstinence will be observed, has one resort to practices such as the excision and the infibulation. The purpose of these mutilations are to block any sexual pleasure, by associating pain and sex, in order to guarantee the most rigorous chastity.

Mutilation of the female genitals. It is about the ritual excision of a part or of the entirety of the external genitals of a woman or a girl, explains Dr. Kintega Boulma in her thesis supported at the University of Casablanca. She continues: “It is an old cultural practice which remains today mainly in certain African areas . Very often called “female circumcision” by analogy with the male circumcision, the female circumcision is done neither by all the Moslems nor by all Arabic.” It is advisable to know that no religious text requires such practices: not more the Bible that Coran. The female sexual mutilations are a frequent practical in 28 African countries and some areas of the Middle East and Asia. More than 120 million women are victims. In the majority of the cases, this so-called female circumcision is carried out without anaesthesia, by barbers or midwives, with rudimentary instruments. Complications which lead sometimes to death are not exceptional.

One distinguishes three kinds of “female circumcisions”:
- Femalecircumcision known as sunnah, or in conformity with the tradition of Mohamed, although one cannot refer to a precise order of Coran. According to an author traditional, Al-Mawardi, it consists in cutting the skin in form core which is at the top of the body. One must thus cut the protuberant skin of it, without outward journey until ablation. For Doctor Hamid Al-Ghawabi, it acts to cut as well the clitoris as the small lips. According to Doctor Mahran, one excise the cap of clitoris as well as the posterior parts more important of the small lips.

- Clitoridectomy or excision. It is the ablation of the clitoris and the small lips. It is most frequently the operation practised in Egypt.

- The infibulation or Pharaonic circumcision. The term “infibulation” comes from a Latin word meaning “buckled together”.  It is practised in particular in Sudan and Somalia and consists of the total ablation of the clitoris, of small lips and of part of the large lips. The two parts of the vulva are then bent together with the means points of joining of silk or catgut (in Sudan) or by means of spines (in Somalia) so that the vulva is closed except for a tiny opening for passage of the urine and the menstrual flow. During wedding night, the husband will have “to open” his wife, generally using a dagger with double edge. In certain tribes, the woman is sewed at each departure of the husband and “opened” on each return of this one. One closes the opening in the event of divorce to prevent that woman has sexual relations.
http://tropiquesante.ifrance.com/tropiquesante/biblio/doc/doc1.htm

An illegal but persistent practice It should be known that this practice is denounced and made illegal in many Western and African countries, but running up against the weight of traditions, today still, in Somalia and in Djibouti, 98% of the girls are mutilated. In Egypt, in Burkina-Faso, in Mali, in Gambia, this rate exceeds 80%. In Chad, Benign, Togo, Liberia, Cote d’Ivoire, a young girl on two undergoes this mutilation. In the countries of Magreb, these mutilations are not practised. In Occident, the infibulation was a long time practised, associated with a chastity belt. One made pass from the rings in the lips and closed then the vulva by a wire or a lock whose husband kept the key even and especially when he went away. Very practical can also be diverted of its intention. It is known that the purpose of the female sexual mutilations are to prohibit the sexual intercourse and the discovery of the pleasure. However, a certain form of female circumcision , practised in the tribe of Kikuyu of Kenya, would be carried out today in certain hospitals of Paris to increase the capacity of pleasure of certain wealth women. One releases the clitoris and one folds back it inside the vagina. Such a practice would increase the sexual pleasure of the women…

Repression of sexual desire
It remains that the objective of the female sexual mutilations is to repress the sexual desire, and thus to ensure of chastity. The intervention causes a violent trauma , which will mark all the existence forever. Samia, Moslem woman, born in a small Egyptian village close to the Sudanese border and who lives in Cairo testifies: “I was seven years old when I was mutilated. I remember the accounts of the women of my village which spoke about this operation as if their life was stopped there. The atrocity of their descriptions and at the same time the feeling of one fate from which I could not escape, had caused in me such a panic that when arrived the day so much dreaded, I was taken of vomiting. What occurred then is still so extreme in my flesh that it is able to awake me in middle of the night howling and calling my mother”.

http://www.lemanlake.com/french/islam_excision.htm

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