Dictionary

inchastity en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /ɪnˈt͡ʃæstɪti/

Etymology

From in- + chastity: compare French inchasteté.

Meanings

1. (countable, rare, uncountable) Absence of chastity; the quality of being unchaste.
   • In pre-Christian Roman belief it might be held as better not to indulge in extramarital sex, as a courtesy more than a due to one’s partner, or because character was believed to derive from having the strength to resist vice […] but, such rationalisations aside, male inchastity did not matter as such. Female inchastity could threaten bloodlines and property transfer, and so from the earliest times very much did matter: […] in fact, Chrysostom refutes in detail the legal position that only women’s inchastity signified in marriage, in a passage so full of reproach and repetition […] that we may infer that he too is meeting a dead weight of inertia, if not active opposition, from his hearers. 2003, Gillian Cloke, This Female Man of God: Women and Spiritual Power in the Patristic Age, 350–450 AD, Routledge, →ISBN, page 66:
   • The relevant Qur’anic verse (Ayât) is very similar to the English law on slander per se and the imputation of inchastity for women. 2008, Eleanor Cashin-Ritaine, Laetitia Franck, Shaheeza Lalani, editors, Legal Engineering and Comparative Law/L’ingénierie juridique et le droit comparé, Schulthess, →ISBN, page 199:
   • Having found out about the wife’s inchastity, Geraldine does not need his father’s exhortations to stay away from Wincott’s house. […] He rebukes the wife for her inchastity – and she dies of shame, conveniently leaving a letter of confession. 2012, Tom MacFaul, Problem Fathers in Shakespeare and Renaissance Drama, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 207:

Forms

Synonyms

unchastity