RITUAL CHASTITY. – In non-Christian religions, ritual chastity means the observance of sexual continence prior to the celebration of a rite or an action believed to be influenced by supernatural sacromagical powers. In the practice of all religions, in order to enter into contact with the “sacred,” one must be in a state of purity (ἀγνεῖς, castitas), which is achieved through fasting, abstinence from some particular food (castus, castimonia, as the Latins said, with the meaning of deprivation), or also through abstinence from sexual contact.
Repugnance toward sexual contact derives from the fact that it weakens the forces, removes spiritual clarity and freedom of spirit, and thus makes a person less capable and therefore less suited to enter into contact with the divine world and, in the case of primitive peoples, to master the forces of nature and life. In women too, the sexual act violates the potential for procreation contained in the condition of virginity and in any case weakens them.
Moreover, the emissions connected with the sexual act are regarded as a miasma that renders the individual impure and therefore unworthy of addressing the divinity, and all the more so, as in the case of the priesthood, of acting as intermediary between it and human beings.
The idea that sexual purity is necessary for approaching the divine world is confirmed by the fact that in several rituals children and prepubescent boys are entrusted with the rite and regarded as the most suitable intermediaries between the community and the gods.
Ritual chastity is required above all on the night preceding the celebration of the rite, but it may also be imposed for more than one day. Among primitive peoples, sexual abstinence is prescribed for the period of sowing, in order to avert adverse weather conditions, and to secure success in hunting, fishing, and warfare; during these activities the wives of the men involved observe strict sexual abstinence, which they supplement with songs and dances to strengthen the power of the absent man, a power that would be weakened by their infidelity and would place him at a disadvantage before the animals to be captured or the enemy.
In Brahmanical India, the person who offers the sacrifice, in addition to external purification and fasting, must strictly abstain from sexual contact (Apostomha-grhya sūtra, X, 14, 10); even the horse intended for the great annual sacrifice (aśvamedha) must not mate; and if, despite the vigilance to which it is subjected, it violates the rule, an expiatory sacrifice is required.
In Greece, on the second day of the Anthesteria (late February), the basilissa, wife of the archon king, before proceeding to the hierogamy with the image of Dionysus, must observe ritual chastity together with the fourteen matrons who accompany her; during the Thesmophoria, which fall in the month of Pyanopsion (late October), Athenian women must abstain for three days from food and sexual contact.
The thirty-year chastity imposed on the Roman Vestals (Plutarch, Numa, 10) served to strengthen their function as guardians of the State hearth and of its prosperity, represented by the penus, or storeroom of provisions. This fertilizing power inherent in virginity is also demonstrated by the rite that took place in the temple of Juno Sospita at Lanuvium, where, if the serpent sacred to the goddess ate the meal offered to it by a virgin, this was considered a good omen for the fertility of the year (fertilis annus erit [Propertius, IV, 8, 14]).
In Rome, during the secret festival of Bona Dea, reserved for women (1 May), they had to abstain from sexual intercourse (Plutarch, Quaest. rom., 20). In the Eastern religions that spread through Rome during the Hellenistic period, sexual abstinence is extensively documented. The Bacchanalia, prohibited by the Senatusconsultum of 186 B.C., required ten days of abstinence, including sexual abstinence (Livy, XXXIX, 11).
With regard to Isis, Plutarch (De Iside, 2) states that the goddess, through the prescribed sexual abstinence, tames “unbridled lust” in men. The complaints of Tibullus (I, 3, 23), Propertius (II, 28, 61; 33, 1, 5; IV, 5, 35), and Ovid (Amores, I, 8, 15; III, 9, 33) are well known concerning the strict reserve of their respective lovers on the goddess’s festival (cf. also Juvenal, VI, 535).
As for Cybele, Hippolytus (Ref. haer., V, 9) states that her initiates had to observe chastity during the days of her festival. According to Ovid (Met., X, 435), the duration of this abstinence was nine days. Finally, Mithra, an austere god who admits no elements of sensual pleasure into his myth, could boast virgins and continent persons among his followers: “habet et virgines, habet et continentes” (Tertullian, De prescr. haer., 40).