"Blessed Are the Virgins..." The Unpublished Beatitude

“Blessed are the virgins, for they will not be called whores and stoned to death.”

heavily adapted from 

Spiritual Reflection #1

For TH680 A

October 13, 2012

Warning: the following post challenges traditional religious values around female sexuality.

Most of the couples that come to me to be married have already been living together for some time.  I was raised to believe that any sex outside of marriage was evil.  How do I resolve this childhood teaching with today's western culture statistics?

In particular, the female participant in "fornication" was defined as being, "of loose morals," or a "fallen woman."  (The male was just acting like a male.)

Raised to be “pure” before marriage, and to pray to be blessed with that sacred union, I went so far as not to engage in anything sexual before I was engaged just to be absolutely sure.  (Shut up!)  
My marriage failed.  (I said shut up.)

Paradoxically, despite what I was taught, I never felt judgment toward those I knew who had had sex before marriage. What matters still to me is who they are in the present moment, not their sexual history.  Neither does their sexual history seem to affect the quality of their marriage relationships.  Many friends who were sexually active before marriage are still married, for example. I, who did it perfectly, got divorced. In fact, very little of what I was taught about sexual morality in my childhood seems true in life.  At best, it is profoundly simplistic.

But look at these quotes, used in my upbringing:


"After her maidenhead has been breached and her virginity tasted, a maiden becomes a wife, and if not a wife, a whore." (from my childhood tradition)

"But if … evidence of virginity was not found in the young woman, then … the men of her city shall stone her to death with stones. . . . So you shall purge the evil from your midst." (Deuteronomy 22:20-21)

I have to admit, simply seeing such material gives me a chill.  I shudder, knowing how the uneducated and ignorant use these texts without understanding their culture or context.

Either today's young people are sinning, or there is another way to understand their choices around sexual activity that fit my gut sense that they are in no spiritual danger.  Everything I know from psychology says that our self-knowledge and emotional intelligence---our ability to take healthy responsibility for our lives and live in respect of ourselves and others, indeed our psychological or spiritual hygiene---is what matters, not the state of our sexual experience. 

While I was taught to believe that there was something innately sacred about intercourse and female virginity, I no longer believe that something terrible happens to a girl’s character if she crosses this threshold before she is in a traditional marriage. 

There are many Biblical quotes that counter the fearful ones above, if Biblical quotes are needed.  We are advised not to be too judgmental (Matthew 7:1) That the ones who are without sin are the only ones who can cast a stone (John 8:7) And then there are the Beatitudes (Matt. 5:1-11). Nowhere do we read among the Beatitudes, “Blessed are the virgins, for they will not be called whores and stoned to death.”

My understanding is that a prohibition of sex outside of marriage makes a great deal of sense in an honour/shame culture, when women were more property than people, and where a pregnancy out of wedlock greatly jeopardized a woman's worth and therefore her chances of survival.  In ancient times, to impregnate a girl and leave her without support would be essentially to create a whore and bastard. That was the sin. The prohibition was realistic and pragmatic in its day. It was to prevent victimizing the vulnerable population, not control the sex-act itself. In many cultures even today, single mothers remain profoundly socially and financially disadvantaged, including in much of North America, and it is STILL women who bear the brunt of this reality. rarely do the fathers experience any consequence.

Based on these realizations, I no longer believe that something terrible happens to a girl’s character if she crosses this threshold before she is in a traditional marriage.  That is NOT what these prohibitions are about.

       Until the extremely recent introduction of birth control, combined with the increasing ability of women to support themselves financially, the harsh reality for women much of the world over was shame, loss of all community or family support, and all too often descent into sex work as the only remaining way to support themselves.

So, if the key issue for our historic prohibition of sexual activity outside of marriage is that it once put a girl at tremendous risk, then the moral issue is about protecting a vulnerable population (women and infants) from greater poverty; it is not about the status of a woman's hymen.  

The moral codes in so many religious teachings are about the moral obligation of the community and those in power NOT to victimize those who are vulnerable.  This social code is found in many ancient traditions, springing from times in which women could not engage in sexual activity without a very high risk of impregnation. It was about protecting women from having to carry, deliver, and raise a child without any means of support. But we turned it into the opposite---shaming and shunning women who were discovered to have been "violated" whether voluntarily or involuntarily, requiring them to do the very things from which the moral code was designed to protect them.  We even shamed the "bastards" as if they too, were somehow deserving of being born into a reality that judged them based on something over which they had no control.  What a mess we have made of things!

If God is love, then the Divine Being is concerned about healthy interpersonal dynamics, mutual caring and support, and about NOT harming the vulnerable. God is concerned with the wellbeing of a person’s soul, not the sexual history of their body.

          If we could understand these things, perhaps we would ease up on our fearful desire to control each other's sexuality and spend more time on WHY such laws were created.  If the laws were created to help us not treat each other badly, maybe we could see that treating each other badly should never be the outcome of following such laws.

         That makes sense.  Stay safe, respect yourself and all others, and be at peace.