"Chastity generation", myth or reality?

By: Michalis Stoukas

Hearing about a chastity belt, our mind goes back to centuries of stories of knights who were absent from their homes for years at a time – taking part in various campaigns such as the Crusades – and wanting to make sure their wives didn't cheat on them. , for which they were forced to wear a special metal construction, known as a chastity belt, which did not allow them to have sexual intercourse with another man since this "belt" was locked under the ribs with a special lock, the key of which the jealous husband took her with him.

It was an inhumane, animalistic and barbaric practice. Chastity belts had a hole with a jagged frame that barely allowed for daily bodily needs to be met. However, nowadays there are many doubts whether such areas really existed. Long-term contact of the metal with the skin would certainly cause women serious health problems: urinary infections, various skin problems, decay, even death... Let's take a historical look at the issue of "protecting" women's chastity to different peoples.

The first area of ​​chastity is described by Homer in the work "Odyssey". Hephaestus, the god of fire and blacksmith who was lame and ugly, wanted revenge on his wife Aphrodite, the goddess of love, who betrayed him. So, he forged a thin iron mesh that enclosed the genitals...

The Romans in the early years of the "eternal city" had the following custom: the genitals and the area around each betrothed girl were wrapped with a very thin woolen bandage, known as the "virginity belt". The Latin grammarian of the second century BC, Festus, said that "no fur, however expensive, seemed soft enough for such a fine detail." This belt was closed at its base with a special knot called "Knot of Heracles". When the betrothed girl, accompanied by relatives and friends, arrives at the threshold of the matrimonial home and after the wedding rites of marriage are over, she is left alone with the groom who is untying the knot of Heracles...

In general, there was moral strictness in ancient Rome. It is indicative that the man had the right, by law, to kill the woman if her breath smelled of wine! Roman ladies lived at home in the company of their female slaves, weaving and working with spears. Their clothes were soft and modest. Young men busy with wars or public offices did not even think of friendship. It was a glory for a Roman woman to have intercourse with only one man in her life, to be 'univera'. Divorce, although legal, was hardly ever used. Only Spurio Carvixio divorced his wife because she could not bear children, causing the anger of his fellow citizens.

Later, of course, there was a liberation of morals in Rome. When Julius Caesar suspected that his wife Pompeia was cheating on him with Publius Claudius (although it is possible that it was a plot orchestrated by Caesar himself), he immediately divorced her saying the famous phrase: "Caesar's wife is not enough for to be honest, it must be honest". In the following years, the Romans lived in debauchery. Horace refers to the women's silk dresses with boning that hid absolutely nothing. There were also women like Telezina mentioned by Marciali, who changed husbands every three days! It was a legal act which, however, the poet considered more immoral than even the most shameless adultery.

For the Jews, areas of chastity were unknown. They used not so reliable means to check their wife's faith. Anyone who suspected that they were a victim of adultery, called their relatives and a priest who blessed the water called "bitter water" with various rites and gave it to the woman to drink. If she was an adulteress, they believed that the water would cause her death with terrible convulsions. If she was innocent, the water would do her no harm. The faith that Jewish women had in religion made this a very effective means of discovery. Those who did not have a very clear conscience almost never dared to drink the water and confessed everything. The prescribed punishment for adulterers was stoning.

In Greece, no "preventive" measure was ever taken to protect women's faith. Adulterers were severely punished, but often not punished as the Greeks did not want terrible punishments to be meted out for an offense that did not cause much harm; they did not believe that a woman's promiscuity affected a man's honor, but the woman herself was rarely considered dishonest or corrupt. All the anger of the man was directed against him … his wife's lover.

A custom similar to chastity belts and found mainly in Asia Minor was the infibulation (fastening) of girls. In a simple but extremely painful operation, some white meat traders sewed the girls' "lips". When there was a "buyer", the "merchant" cut the seam that guaranteed virginity with a razor in his presence! The trade in "sewn virgins" still flourished in late 19th-century Asia, although flesh traders took great care to avoid the controls of European consular authorities on the slave trade.

Similar customs existed among the Americans who forced their wives to wear belt buckles. There were letters and numbers on them and only with a combination, which the man knew, the lock was opened! But even in many peoples of Africa where women wear a kind of thick box that covers their genitals...

During the years of the Crusades there were many tragicomic events which, combined with what they saw in the East, led Western nobles to consider how they could be sure that their husbands would not betray them when they were away. As knights fought in Palestine, poets and troubadours roamed the towers making propositions to women who were rarely refused... Their talents and lust made even unattractive men in demand. A terrible hunchback, Adamo d'Ana, had passed through the bedrooms of many distinguished gentlemen. But in addition to the passing troubadours there were more serious dangers from the clerics who remained in the towers while the knights fought in the Holy Land. And, of course, they did not stand idly by... A French baron returned home after five years of absence. In his tower he found a beautiful three-year-old boy that his wife had given birth to! The crusader wanted to make them all glass nails. But the vicar assured him that the birth of this child was a miracle from heaven to reward the faith and worth of the Christian believer (ie, the baron), securing his house from all danger of destruction.

There were many similar incidents that made Westerners jealous and wonder how they could secure their wife's fidelity during their absence. What they saw in the East gave them ideas... It is said that even in Byzantium, from the time of the Isaurians (717-802) until the years of the Komnens (1081-1185), the empresses wore a kind of chastity belt.

The first to use chastity belts for their women were probably the Italians. The French, Germans, English and God-fearing Spaniards followed, where this inhumane practice was maintained for many years. References to chastity belts date back to the 13th century. Crusaders returning to France from Palestine had to leave immediately for Languedoc in southern France, where Simon de Montfort was leading his army against the Albigensians, the heretics against whom Pope Innocent III had organized a crusade. Many of their wives were then forced to wear chastity belts despite their protests.

Ethnologist Ilex gives a detailed description of the chastity belt: "The instrument, whose appearance shows very well the double service required to expose it to the public, is made of wrought iron, engraved and gilded. Its front part is a kind of chest that follows the curve of the abdomen and at a distance of ten centimeters from the height of the waist it narrows as necessary to be able to meet with a buckle that connects it to the back part. Just before this clip, there is a small oval-shaped serrated opening. After the dill, at the back now, is the second opening which is shaped like a clover. The iron, then grooved, to be slightly rounded in its two parts, and rises as the front where it fits into a part-carved rim intended to permanently close the two natural outlets under a steel armature.” Each chastity belt was custom made. A blacksmith would "measure" the unfortunate woman and then make a chastity belt especially for her...

Another description of the chastity belt comes from the records of a trial held in Nimes, France in 1751. A woman took her husband to court for various indecent acts, but mostly to force him to wear a chastity belt. chastity. Her lawyer, a Frejdier, insisted mainly on the woman's humiliation by her husband and the insulting significance it had for the belt itself. And, he concluded his advice as follows: "This whole structure is so built up that nothing remains but a small opening full of projections that make it completely inaccessible."

Of course, the chastity zones weren't… invulnerable, since it wasn't hard to make keys against them. Characteristically mentions the passage of a gunner from Milan who went to Paris to find ... the vulnerable points of the belt of Queen Anne of Austria. It was very easy for him to construct a lock with which the belt could be opened whenever the queen wished. Chastity belts were used until the late 1930th century and then as a means of preventing girls and teenagers from masturbating until about XNUMX!

However, individual references to the use of the chastity zone in different regions of the Earth are made to this day...

The health problems caused when a woman wears a chastity belt are indisputable. Even the undergarments of velvet and other materials that the bands had did not offer anything substantial. This inhuman "middle" represented the clear masculine authoritarianism that nurtured concepts such as honor, jealousy, and marital fidelity. Today, everything we mentioned is considered unthinkable and unacceptable. The position of women in society has improved significantly, but unfortunately some people continue to commit criminal offenses against women. Let's hope that in the coming years all these unacceptable events will disappear or be reduced to a minimum... /Source: Protothema / In Albanian from: Gazeta "Shqiptare"/