Female Chastity Re-examined
Allyson Poska’s article “Elusive Virtue: Rethinking the Role of Female Chastity in Early Modern Spain” begins by addressing the standard historian’s view of how prevalent the principles of female chastity were in early modern Spain. Poska then spends the remainder of the article strategically refuting this generally accepted historical point. It seems that over time, scholars have given the principles of female chastity in the early Spanish society much more publicity than they deserve; this may be due to the fact that the majority of the literature — which, I must add, were written by men — expressed the views of the upper class and the nobility in relevance to a woman’s virtue. However, it also seems that scholars have failed to recognize that these views do not encompass those held by the Spanish peasantry who comprised the majority of the population. The misconception, however, is understandable considering that one of the most popular texts at the time created an overly dramatic view of the consequences of a woman would reap if she were to lose her chastity. The article also points out a few other popular literary texts that make absurd claims about how the world would practically end if a woman had forsaken her virginity.
Another source of error for many early modern historians is rooted in their viewing female chastity from only two frameworks: the Mediterranean honor code and the Catholic Reformation. The Mediterranean honor code, as formulated by historians, claimed that “women derive their honor from preservation of their chastity” (138). The Spanish monarchy tried to enforce Christian orthodoxy by controlling prostitution and supposedly aggressively constraining female activity. Poska is quick to point out the flaws in these two paradigms. The Mediterranean honor code is said to have been written from an ethnocentric viewpoint by Anglo-Saxons who viewed the Mediterranean societies as unruly. Other research has shown that the Catholic Reformation may not have been as successful as previously thought in its attempt to control prostitution and other deviant acts.
Poska then delves into the meaty core of her argument when she illustrates the five points for her reasoning that female chastity was not widely valued in early Spain. The first of these was the fact that there were high rates of celibacy and that if female chastity was of high importance, then the parents of young girls would be hastily arranging marriages of that. This, however, was not the case with the peasantry. The second point demonstrated that there is exists little evidence of an attempt to disengage females from contact with males. In fact, the economy was dependent upon the interactions between men and women of the peasantry. The third point showed the often high rates of illegitimate pregnancies and prenuptial sex. The fourth indicated that the law did in fact provide protection for women to sue men for taking their virginity if the two were previously involved with each other and the man resolved to leave the woman. The last point attacks the idea that women would be permanently damaged for losing their chastity, but Poska points out that the illegitimate children oftentimes lead normal lives and that peasant women were most likely valued more for their skills than their chastity.
In my opinion, Poska’s debunking the ideals of female chastity as an overwhelming entity provided for a more truthful viewpoint of early Spanish society. She is effective in her argument, yet hasty to fully accept any viewpoint without addressing the caveats.
