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Virginity: Important of Chastity in Westeros


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On 1/9/2017 at 2:12 PM, Protagoras said:

Come to think of it, are there any characters in the book who actually speak about the importance of virginity apart from Cersei (who is clearly not a role-model when it comes to this) and Lancel (who has gotten a serious disease - religion - in him at that point)?

Edit: Oh - Lysa too, not the brightest bulb nor a great role-model.

I seem to recall a conversation between Jon and Ygritte in which he expresses shock and dismay at the wildlings' sexual practices.  He seems surprised that premarital sex would be considered acceptable, which suggests that in the environment in which he was brought up, it wasn't.  It wasn't just his vows that caused him difficulty with Ygritte.  And, yes, his bastardy might have had something to do with it, but he still seemed to have serious objections to premarital sex. 

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The main reason given for Jons virginity was his personal lack of acceptance of not knowing his mother and his response to his status as a bastard. He did not want to have out of wedlock children. Tyrion gets on his case to own his bastardized. He was later disturbed by breaking his Nights Watch vows, and losing his virginity, which he did for many reasons.

in the real world, there were occasional virginity inspections, let's say for Elizabeth I and Mary I. And even now there are purity balls, and sex education that tells females they are like used chewing gum if they are not virgins.  Whereas, The High Septon seems to shock people with his radical and political religious actions. His winning of the small folk seems more like a popular movement more like that of the Puritans and the roundheads. Melisandres religiosity seems to be a surprise, too. It is accepted by Stannis for the purpose of using her magical properties and to galvanize a rebellion. Emporer Constantine did much the same with his army. Stannis uses his infidelity, and a relious movenent as a weapon. Obviously Rhllor doesn't seem to care about virginity!

The original idea that a messiah in the Christian bible, I have read, is from Old Testament prophets words that were mistranslated from young woman, to virgin. Later on, there was some effort to make  a lot out of Mary, and possibly to keep up with the idea of virgin birth in other cults and myths. The idea of Jesus divinity, and other concepts, was very much disputed till Catholic dogma was settled centuries later, other disputing gospels were destroyed, and people who disagreed were forced to conform or be killed. Once the Targs are in power, there seems to be a lot more power given to Kingship and nobility.

it does seem even now that people conflate chastity and virginity. All children begin as virgins, but a virgin female or a virgin male can have an O. A virgin female who has not had sex may or may not have an intact hymen. An old woman  may act maidenly, but may or may  not h Ave an intact hymen. The strange insistence by some of Mary's virginity, even after giving birth( with a re growing hymen?) can really be taught by repetition and a lot of magical thinking.

in Westeros, any women, or men may pray to the Mother archetype, or any archetype.Maidens or virgins do not have worship the Maiden, and then suddenly become a devotee of the Mother, once they've had sex. ( a Maiden can be not a virgin, not intact, not a wife or a mother and may also be a crone)

i do think Martin knows what he's doing, by calling the Maiden that name, and not calling her the Virgin. He probably knows about the Bible confusion, too, including the mistranslation, but that would be a great question to ask him. As has been said I believe he meant to capture a less dogmatic and powerful stand in for the Catholic faith in Westeros version of the Middle Ages, that reflects different developmental and situational archetypes. 

 

 

 

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On 2017-01-13 at 0:15 AM, Nevets said:

I seem to recall a conversation between Jon and Ygritte in which he expresses shock and dismay at the wildlings' sexual practices.  He seems surprised that premarital sex would be considered acceptable, which suggests that in the environment in which he was brought up, it wasn't.  It wasn't just his vows that caused him difficulty with Ygritte.  And, yes, his bastardy might have had something to do with it, but he still seemed to have serious objections to premarital sex. 

Bastardly is certainly one big factor (show-Jon has a really likely speech about this and while not canon I think Book-Jon would agree) but we are also talking lack of life-experience and age. Jon has lived in a pretty cloistered environment and simply don´t get why people do things he can´t relate to. I think he was not so much accustomed to his environment as he was to certain ways of thinking, who might have seen for him the only way (after all, he is a bastard and bastard = bad. Therefore sex before marriage = bad. Jon is not much of a thinker to be honest). And lets be more honest here, young people have a hard time understanding that having a relationship is more then just holding hands and be "right for eachother" - the sexual component (otherwise, why not be friends? You can argue, and I will, that a relationship minus the sex and the attraction is nothing more than a strong friendship).

I am pretty sure that if you ask Jon today about his opinion on premarital sex then I don´t think he would care about it. He certainly isn´t goin to do a biblical rant about the sinfulness of it, thats for sure.

So, personally, I don´t think Jon is a character who would claim the importance of virginity.

 

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Beyond the question of paternity, I wouldn't rule out some magical significance given the emphasis on blood magic and GRRM's frequency in splashing maiden's blood across the narrative tapestry. Lady Dustin's description of her blood on Brandon Stark's "sword" considered in light of the whole Lightbringer thing, for example.

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