Virginity in 17th and 18th Century Poetry Essay examples

During that era, the entirety of sexual intercourse (irrespective to the practice of married couples with intentions to procreate) was deemed immoral. This was because any practice of sexual activity was

Purity was no less important than piety. Women were warned men would try to steal their purity, but they must be strong and resist the temptation. Thomas Branagan threatened women a horrible fate if they did not remain pure in the 1808 publication, The Excellency of the Female Character Vindicated, “You will be left in silent sadness to bewail your credulity, imbecility, duplicity, and premature prostitution” (Welter 103). Women of the Nineteenth Century were taught to believe the contradiction that purity before marriage brought happiness, until it was time to be married and all innocence is lost. Without proper preparation to deal with the moral dilemma women were expected to deal with this severe change in their lives without questions (Welter 104).

The Quakers had a saying: “In souls there is no sex.” This meant in their culture, men and women were equal. Unlike Puritan culture, women could preach to men and women, and in a public setting. That same quote went for sexual relations in marriages. Sex in Quaker culture was looked upon as just for the purpose of conception of children. To do otherwise was looked at as fornication. To have sex just for pleasure was also fornication. Even married couples would restrain from having sex with each other if the woman was not in time to get pregnant. Married couple also occupied not only single beds but slept in separate rooms.

mind. It suggest the poet see it as love or nothing and that he was

Vern L. Bullough's article, "On Being a Male in the Middle Ages," addresses how vital it was for a man living in the middle ages to be sexually active in order to maintain a masculine identity by explaining:

The Middle Ages were a time of expanding and experimenting sexually for the people. Religious figures who had taken vows of celibacy had children, sometimes with more than one woman. Even some popes of the time had illicit affairs. However,

“Women’s honor, something altogether else: virginity chastity, fidelity to a husband. Honesty in women has not been considered important. We have been depicted as generically whimsical, deceitful, subtle, vacillating, and we have been rewarded for lying.” 413.

The Elizabethan age regarded women’s sexuality as a form of currency. In England’s social structure currency was a means to power. A woman’s virginity was something to be bargained for, and when the time was right, sold to the highest bidder. In modern day, this slightly resembles prostitution, but during Elizabethan times selling a daughter’s virginity was the quickest way up the social ladder. During this time, the sacrifice of virginity implies marriage. Young women rarely married on the idea of love alone, due to the father’s interests in finding an ideal husband that will strengthen the family’s position within the community. Author of Shakespeare’s Women, Angela Pitt states “if for some reason it was impractical for a girl to marry she was encouraged to enter a nunnery,” (15). English women were predominantly ignored outside of the matrimonial and spiritual world.

This has changed significantly since the 19th century. Sex, amongst others, is no longer taboo to women and it has become a much more liberated subject. It is encouraged and accepted in today's society that a woman enjoys sexual pleasures outside the restraints of only pregnancy, even marriage.

In the Antebellum time period, there were four voices that carefully discussed and showed their beliefs of sex to the society. One of the voices was known as Evangelical Christianity. Christian ministers and Lyman Beecher’s, strong ideas and passionate efforts were shown to try and get society to follow their ideas of sex. In their eyes, lust was known to be a deadly sin during the Nineteenth Century (Horowitz, 8). In order for them to control society members, they expressed and advocated that if one goes against the Christian view of sex and lacks morality, then he or she will be lead to the devil (Beecher, 45). Evangelical Christianity supporters such as Lyman Beecher believed in using the church, Bible, law and institutions to control how individuals acted upon sex as well as how sex was seen in society as

In the Victorian era, sex was focused on the procreation and passing on alleles, sex was not to be pleasurable at all, and doctors often said that the luckiest women were the ones who didn’t feel pleasure from intercourse. Controlling one’s self was looked at as “cardinal virtue” (which means the principals for morality) by Protestant societies. If a man or woman can control themselves sexually, they can be a be a better Christian with a better conscience. If a young woman or girl has sexual fantasies or intercourse, she cannot be saved by a preacher because she was too impure at such a young age. This conflicts with science, because although a girl has sex, she is not branded a bad person.

How is the poetry of the 17th century different from the poetry of the 16th century?

It was during the Elizabethan age that England felt the complete effect of the Renaissance. There occurred a revival of the old and classical literature of Greece and Rome and this was manifested in the poetry of the age. The Elizabethan age was characterized by an extreme spirit of adventure, aestheticism and materialism which became the characteristic features of Elizabethan poetry. Many poets displayed their skill in versification during this time and England came to be called The Nest Of Singing Birds.

The main source of this code of purity and virtue is the resurgence of Puritanism in the last decades of 18th century (Methodism and Evangelical movement). There was a revival of the old traditions which were very conservative and especially repressed of any sexual behaviour.

The future conditions of the woman’s potential marital worth were much poorer than any punishment the violator could have received. Once a woman was raped, her virginity was no longer available for her husband to have. “‘Virginity is the ornament of morals, the sanctity of the sexes, the peace of families and the source of the greatest friendships.’ Its existence was a precondition for marriage. To publicly breach it was to compromise honor, rank, even life; a ‘deflowered’ girl inevitably became a ‘lost’ girl. . . ‘The ravishing of virginity was the worst rape of all.’” (Cite Book 1) An innocent woman had now completely lost her worth to society and her own dignity due to a man’s egocentric and merciless actions.