In our recent studies of history, we found two interesting quotes, from two different sources, written in two different centuries. Both timeless.
“Chastity is so essential and natural to your sex, that every declination from it is a proportionable receding from womanhood. An immodest woman is a kind of monster, distorted from its proper form.”
A Letter of Genteel and Moral Advice to a Young Lady
Wilkes, Wetenhall
“Chastitie is a vertue much commended in a souldier, when uncleannesse doth defile body and soule, and make a man stinke in the nostrils of God and man, and laieth him open to the malice and sword of his enemy, for commonly it makes a man effeminate, cowardly, lasie and full of diseases, and surely such who have unlawful women still trudging about with them, or in whom custome hath taken away the sence of offending in that kind, commonly come to dishounorable ends.”
Instructions of the Marshall for the better enabling of a privat soldier to the executing of his duty in this present Glorie — June 22, 1611
[Emphases my own]
In other words, we would draw from these two quotes that lack of chastity in a woman makes her less a woman, and lack of chastity in a man makes him less a man — that chastity is an integral part of womanliness in a woman, and of manliness in a man. This concept is interesting food for thought, especially when we consider that inchastity and androgyny are generally seen together throughout history, and very clearly in our own generation.
