So pure.

[katernater]

As part of my final semester of graduate school, I continue to work with one of my professors to collect, abstract, and decipher research materials about, well, pretty much anything she's interested in. She's currently working on a pair of English plays from the Early Modern period, and how they treat concepts of female virginity and chastity. As a result, most of the books that I receive from interlibrary loan have some variation of the word "hymen" or "virginity" in the titles, which prompts a lot of raised eyebrows from the library staff (if they ever ask, I'm going to tell them I've got a "big weekend" planned). Anyway, so I'm reading all of this stuff, and the kinds of tests that have historically been done to prove/disprove female virginity are a joke. Here are some of my favourites:

In tractate Kethuboth [part of the Talmud], it is recorded that Rabbi Gamaliel performed a virginity test, calling for "two handmaids, one who is a virgin and who had intercourse with a man." The two women were placed upon a cask of wine. The Rabbi, we are told, was able to smell the fumes of the wine through he mouth of the nonvirgin; however, the wine was undetectable on the breath of the virgin.

The 13th century physician Guilielmus de Saliceto claimed that a virgin can be identified because she "urinates with a subtle hiss," while still other scholars and physicians declared that the urine of virgins was "clear and lucid, sometimes white, sometimes sparkling."

In De secretic mulierum, a prescribed test for determining the purity of a woman was to "grind up the flowers of a lily and the yellow particles in between the flowers, and give her this substance to eat. If she is corrupt, she will urinate immediately."

You guys, I can't even.

Comments

ia hugh laurie

[oddrid.livejournal.com]

[katernater.livejournal.com]

So I guess the message to all unclean women is, if you ever need to beat the stain of sexual sin, never, ever go to the bathroom.

[oddrid.livejournal.com]

This shit is seriously amazing. I am actually bookmarking this entry so I can refer to it from time to time. I mean, honestly.

[ceitfianna]

o.O Virginity brings out the stupid. The research sounds sort of interesting though and like a great part time job.

[katernater.livejournal.com]

It's terrific work, and very, very interesting.

[ceitfianna]

Can I ask what the plays are?

I took a great course about women in Early Modern plays in college and we talked a lot about the virgin/whore stuff.

[katernater.livejournal.com]

John Milton's Comus (A Mask Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634), and Philip Massinger's The Renegado.

[ceitfianna]

I've read the first one, but not the second.

[katernater.livejournal.com]

Massinger was Milton's contemporary, though we're not sure if they passed in the same circles. I actually borrowed a copy of Milton's library, which is supposed to list all of the titles in Milton's personal collection, to see if he owned any Massinger.

Massinger's great. A terrifically interesting life, too.

[ceitfianna]

Ooh, I'll have to investigate him. That era is just fascinating.

[handsomespeck.livejournal.com]

Oh my god. I cannot stop laughing at the sparkling white pee.

[katernater.livejournal.com]

From the vineyards of Ernest and Julio Gallo...

[smurphy487.livejournal.com]

That is just messed up.

I kind of want to say they should have gotten a hobby, but back then that was their hobby

[katernater.livejournal.com]

ROFL.

[smurphy487.livejournal.com]

And these were guys who were probably either not getting any or masturbating at the idea of studying virgins.

I'm just saying....

[englishmann.livejournal.com]

lol. Sparkling.

In either sense of the word, it's hysterically funny.

[another-myself.livejournal.com]

Um. Wow.

[swankyfunk.livejournal.com]

In conclusion: VIRGIN PEE IS AWESOME

[antiquitea.livejournal.com]

Well. That's just ... wait, what?

[awesomesquared.livejournal.com]

It's like Twilight. SPARKLY SHINY URINE=VIRGIN WHO CAN'T DRIVE.

[spellingwitch.livejournal.com]

To be fair though, they believed a lot of stuff in those days that we now find silly. That the earth was flat, that you could drain out bad spirits by bleeding people. That infection was caused by bad spirits in the first place. And on and on.

Still funny though :)

[somethingwicked.livejournal.com]

I don't like the implications that my piss doesn't sparkle. It's offensive really. And seriously....wine fumes filtering up through the hoo-ha? There are no words.

"You've got wine on your breath! Where have you been sitting?!" LMFAO

[eumelkeks.livejournal.com]

That is so precious. Men and their attempts at being scientific. *snorts* And believe me, I know the looks as, as I've been getting books about homosexuality over the last weeks.