Paradoxes Problems Essays Characters, Chapter
PARADOX. XII. Place this after Paradox XI. fol. 37.That Virginity is a Vertue.
I Call not that Virginity a vertue, which resideth onelyonly in the Bodies integrity; much lesse if it be with a purpose of perpetuall keeping it: for then it is a most inhumane vice—But I call that Virginity a vertue which is willing and desirous to yeeld it selfe upon honest and lawfull terms, when just reason requireth; and untill then, is kept with a modest chastity of Body and Mind. Some perchance will say that Virginity is in us by Nature, and therefore no vertue. True, as it is in us by Nature, it is neither a Vertue nor Vice, and is onelyonly in the body: (as in Infants, Children, and such as are incapable of parting from it) But that Virginity which is in Man or or Woman of perfect age, is not in them by Nature: Nature is the greatest enemy to it, and with most subtile allurements seeks the over-throw of it, continually beating against it with her Engines, and giving such forcible assaults to it, that it is a strong and more then ordinary vertue to hold out till marriage. Ethick Philosophy saith, That no Vertue is corrupted, or is taken away by that which is good: Hereupon some may say, that Virginity is therfore no vertue, being taken away by marriage. Virginity is no otherwise taken away by marriage, then is the light of the starres by a greater light (the light of the Sun:) or as a lesse Title is taken away by a greater: (an Esquire by being created an Earle) yet Virginity is a vertue, and hath her Throne in the middle: The extreams are, in Excesse: to violate it before marriage; in defect, not to marry. In ripe years as soon as reason perswades and opportunity admits, These extreams are equally removed from the mean: The excesse-proceeds from Lust, the defect from Peevishnesse, Pride and Stupidity. There is an old Proverb, That, they that dy maids, must lead Apes in Hell. An Ape is a ridiculous and an unprofitable Beast, whose flesh is not good for meat, nor its back for burden, nor is it commodious to keep an house: and perchance for the unprofitablenesse of this Beast did this proverb come up: For surely nothing is more unprofitable in the Commonwealth of Nature, then they that dy old maids, because they refuse to be used to that end for which they were only made. The Ape bringeth forth her young, for the most part by twins; that which she loves best, she killeth by pressing it too hard: so foolish maids soothing themselves with a false conceit of vertue, in fond obstinacie, live and die maids; and so not onelyonly kill in themselves the vertue of Virginity, and of a Vertue make it a Vice, but they also accuse their parents in condemning marriage. If this application hold not touch, yet there may be an excellent one gathered from an Apes tender love to Conies in keeping them from the Weasel and Ferret. From this similitude of an Ape & an old Maid did the foresaid proverb first arise. But alas, there are some old Maids that are Virgins much against their wills, and fain would change their Virgin-life for a Married: such if they never have had any offer of fit Husbands, are in some sort excusable, and their willingnesse, their desire to marry, and their forbearance from all dishonest, and unlawfull copulation, may be a kind of inclination to vertue, although not Vertue it selfe. This Vertue of Virginity (though it be small and fruitlesse) it is an extraordinary, and no common Vertue. All other Vertues lodge in the Will (it is the Will that makes them vertues.) But it is the unwillingnesse to keep it, the desire to forsake it, that makes this a vertue. As in the naturall generation and formation made of the seed in the womb of a woman, the body is joynted and organized about the 28 day, and so it begins to be no more an Embrion, but capable as a matter prepared to its form to receive the soule, which faileth not to insinuate and innest it selfe into the body about the fortieth day; about the third month it hath motion and sense: Even so Virginity is an Embrion, an unfashioned lump, till it attain to a certain time, which is about twelve years of age in women, fourteen in men, and then it beginneth to have the soule of Love infused into it, and to become a vertue: There is also a certain limited time when it ceaseth to be a vertue, which in men is about fourty, in women about thirty years of age: yea, the losse of so much time makes their Virginity a Vice, were not their endeavour wholly bent, and their desires altogether fixt upon marriage: In Harvest time do we not account it a great vice of sloath and negligence in a Husband-man, to overslip a week or ten dayes after his fruits are fully ripe; May we not much more account it a more heynous vice, for a Virgin to let her Fruit (in potentia) consume and rot to nothing, and to let the vertue of her Virginity degenerate into Vice, (for Virginity ever kept is ever lost.) Avarice is the greatest deadly sin next Pride: it takes more pleasure in hoording Treasure then in making use of it, and will neither let the possessor nor others take benefit by it during the Misers life; yet it remains intire, and when the Miser dies most come to som body. Virginity ever kept, is a vice far wors then Avarice, it will neither let the possessor nor others take benefit by it, nor can it be bequeathed to any: with long keeping it decayes and withers, and becomes corrupt and nothing worth. Thus seeing that Virginity becomes a vice in defect, by exceeding a limited time; I counsell all female Virgins to make choyce of some Paracelsian for their Physitian, to prevent the death of that Vertue: The Paracelsians (curing like by like) say, That if the lives of living Creatures could be taken down, they would make us immortall. By this Rule, female Virgins by a discreet marriage should swallow down into their Virginity another Virginity, and devour such a life & spirit into their womb, that it might make them, as it were, immortall here on earth, besides their perfect immortality in heaven: And that Vertue which otherwise would putrifie and corrupt, shall then be compleat; and shall be recorded in Heaven, and enrolled here on Earth; and the name of Virgin shal be exchanged for a farre more honorable name, A Wife.