Chastity refers to the sexual behavior of a man or woman acceptable to the moral standards and guidelines of a culture, civilization or religion. In the Western world, the term has become closely associated (and is often used interchangeably) with sexual abstinence, especially before marriage. However, the term remains applicable to persons in all states, single or married, clerical or lay, and has implications beyond sexual temperance.
Read more about Chastity: Etymology, In Abrahamic Religions, In Eastern Religions
Famous quotes containing the word chastity:
“Much of the modern resistance to chastity comes from men’s belief that they “own” their bodies—those vast and perilous estates, pulsating with the energy that made the worlds, in which they find themselves without their consent and from which they are ejected at the pleasure of Another!”
—C.S. (Clive Staples)
“The example of Alexander’s chastity has not made so many continent as that is his drunkenness has made intemperate. It is not shameful not to be as virtuous as he, and it seems excusable to be no more vicious.”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)
“It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime.”
—Thomas Paine (1737–1809)