The virginity indicates the state of a man or a woman who did not know a sexual relationships. By extension, this term indicates for a person, an object or even an idea makes it not have been soiled, Viol E or profaned.

Concept of virginity

This concept revêt generally a very great importance in Religion S, inter alia the Catholicism, where the perpetual virginity of Marie, the mother of Jesus de Nazareth, belonged to the Dogma. However, since the Concile Vatican II, the catholic authorities consider that the word “virginity” refers to a “virginity of the heart”, rather than with a “physical virginity”.

During the human history, especially before the appearance of the great religions - but still today in the companies known as “  primitives  ”, virginity generally constituted a sign of unpopularity: it was devoted there to a divinity and the young girl was to lose it before the marriage; Contrary, in the more recent cultures, especially those where the dominant religion associates the sex with the Animal ité and the Péché (for example, three great religions of the Book), virginity revêt a very positive Connotation: it is associated with the cleanliness and the Pureté. In these cultures, virginity is thus attached to the concept of Honneur: the not-virginity of the woman before the Mariage is regarded there as a dishonor for the family. In the companies Occident ales, this type of consideration tends to disappear with the evolution from the Mœurs, such as the Women's Liberation and the liberalization of sexuality. It returns however somewhat following the epidemic of AIDS, in particular in certain countries of Africa).

The price of virginity

Virginity is sometimes bought and monnayée, like a good. For example, at the Geisha S, the sale of this first access is named the Mizuage. In certain countries, to the middle of the XXeme century, if a man did not marry a woman of which it had taken virginity, the woman were authorized to prosecute it and to claim damages, practical Kranzgeld.

The hymen

Virginity, at the woman, is traditionally associated with the presence of the hymen, membrane which bars way incomplete the Vagin and breaks at the time of the first sexual relations. This characterization is used, in certain cultures, for “examinations of virginity”, of which the goal is to prove that an young girl, is still virgin. There exists besides often in these countries a small industry of the surgical reconstitution of the hymen, and a certain folklore of easy ways intended to simulate its presence. The rupture of the hymen can cause certain blood losses; in certain cultures, one could expose the cloth stained of blood after the night of Noces in order to prove the honor of the woman. However, these processes are doubtful physiologically: certain virgin women almost do not have a hymen.

The defloration

The Défloration (known as also defloration ) was considered through times and the cultures like an significant event and one often identifies it with the entry of the woman déflorée in the married life or at least like the end of his childhood.

There exist in certain Culture S, in particular in the Islamic world, an old habit always practiced today which requires to hang to the window bridal cloth stained blood after the Wedding night. Thus it is shown that the woman arrived virgin at the marriage and that the first sexual relation has just taken place.

In Germany, several hymenkliniken is specialized in the surgical operation of rebuilding of hymen . They are often the young girls resulting from Turkish immigration and Moslem woman who have recourse there to escape the reprisals from the family that could cause a too early defloration.

In certain cultures, the defloration was regarded as dangerous for the man. For this reason it was often the woman itself which took care some using an instrument of defloration, or one entrusted this responsibility to an old man, often the chief of tribe.

The checking of virginity (at the woman)

The topic of virginity drew very early the attention of the first Chirurgie NS. In 1598, Severin Pineau makes appear a few years after the death of Ambroise Paré a book on virginity and the Défloration. He affirms that a woman is virgin when its neck can be embraced by a wire which would extend from the point of the nose to the sagittal meeting of the joinings and lambdoïde (behind of cranium).

Nowadays, certain girls have recourse to a Médecin, a Gynécologue or a simple general practitioner, to obtain a certificate of virginity before their marriage, for cultural reasons. After an examination, the expert issues a certificate with the girl attesting that it is supposed to be virgin. The examination is generally done by direct observation of the entry of the vagina. The doctor gives moreover a small description of the type of hymen observed (elastic, fine or very end, flexible, etc).

This practice of authentification of virginity encounters against questions of an ethical nature, but also a medical problem. Indeed, all the studies confirm the extreme difficulty in certifying the absence or the presence of a premarital sexuality, even in the event of obvious rupture of the hymen. An important proportion of clinicians are not able to decide if a tear partial of the hymen is correlated with a sexual activity or not. The studies show that the most frequent deterioration of the hymen after a vaginal penetration is a rupture partial of the free edge, whereas a total rupture is exceptional. The first sexual relation does not involve, in a systematic way, the rupture and the bleeding of the hymen.

Symbolic system

In Occident, at the time of the ceremony of the marriage, the bride wear a white dress and a white veil, which one considers, wrongly, like a symbol of virginity. Actually the port of the white is a recent phenomenon, the bride wearing before a dress with their taste and not specifically white (for example, the modest women had only one “dress of Sunday”, often black, that they carried only for the festivals, of their marriage to their death). To carry white did not become a fashion, then a tradition, that during the XIXeme century. In addition, the Fleur of orange tree, given like symbol of virginity, is used since 1860 in the clothes industry of crowns and bouquets of married like for the “bouquet of virginity” of the husband carried to the reverse of his costume. The Licorne is also a physical symbol of virginity. In the Christian iconography, it represents the Virgin fertilized by the Holy Spirit. In the medieval designs of the courtly love, the unicorn is endowed with the mysterious capacity to detect the impure one.

Theory of the impregnation

The progression of knowledge in Génétique is undoubtedly also one of the causes of the reduction in the importance of virginity: at the beginning of the XXe century, the theory of the Impregnation, or “télégonie”, according to which the first sexual experiment could have an effect on the Descendance, was still very widespread. The writer Victor Margueritte makes of it mention in his novel Garçonne .

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