Chastity

Use in the book

The opening report that chastity is mother of virtues develops into the image of a soul strengthened to overcome obstacles. Its harsh judgment after chastity’s loss belongs to that argument, not a modern diagnosis. The desert-island image makes a boundary possible wherever one lives, rather than requiring literal isolation. The later passage gives the soul pure air amid corrupt surroundings and calls her royal through dominion over the senses. Such images connect restraint to agency, peace and clarity. They should not be reduced to outward reputation or confused with the embarrassment and protective reserve discussed under pudeur.

Places to read

1. I, p. 33, entry 2, ¶1A reported maxim develops chastity as strength against commanding passion.
2. I, p. 148, entry 1, ¶1Chastity creates a figurative desert island around the person.
3. II, p. 878, entry 4, ¶1Pure air, dominion, light and peace describe the soul’s restraint.

Translation in this edition

The English translation preserves the repeated chastity/continence distinction and the feminine personification of the soul. In the early passage it retains the French anomaly est molle est lâche while rendering the coordinated qualities in ordinary English.

Abstinence

French: abstinence.

Abstinence is rendered as abstaining in a fragment that distinguishes calling pleasures criminal from treating abstention as a duty. The pleasures themselves are unnamed. The relation belongs to the ethical vocabulary of restraint; it is not evidence for identifying an unmentioned food, practice or sexual act.

Places to read: I, p. 350, entry 1, ¶1.