Precious Balsam in a Fragile Glass

The Ideology of Virginity in the Later Middle Ages

Bibliographic Data

ID6079592
AuthorsClarissa W Atkinson (Boston College, Harvard Divinity School, corresponding author)
Year1983
Volume8
Issue2
Pages131-143
Publication date1983-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Family History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0363-1990 • E-ISSN: 1552-5473
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/036319908300800203
OpenAlexW2074490718
LanguageEN
Citations received12
References cited11

Since the patristic age, Christians have held ambivalent notions about the meaning of virginity and the status of the virgin. In the early Middle Ages, a physiological definition prevailed; after the thirteenth century, there was an in creasing tendency to interpret virginity in moral and psychological terms—the "true" virgin was characterized by purity and humility. Certain women who were wives and mothers were called to vocations of special holiness, which might include severe ascetic practices, pilgrimage, and mystical communion with God. Some of these women suffered painful conflict over their marital status and family ties, but their experience and reputations marked significant changes in Christian ideas about sexuality and family life. When Luther argued that the virgin was not necessarily the "best" Christian, he argued within a tradition that had widened and expanded during the last medieval centuries

Ambivalence · Ancient history · Archaeology · Asceticism · Christianity · Human sexuality · Humility · Ideology · Meaning (existential) · Middle Ages · Pilgrimage · Political science · Politics · Psychoanalysis · Sociology · Theology · Virginity test · Gender Studies · Historical Economic and Social Studies · History · Law · Medieval Literature and History · Philosophy · Psychology · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity · Religious studies

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