Definition
In legal usage, "chaste" describes a person — historically almost always a woman — who is actually virtuous in sexual conduct and moral principle. The term appears primarily in two legal contexts:
1. Seduction statutes. In criminal and civil actions for seduction, "chaste" was a required element describing the complainant's character. Courts defined it as actual virtue in conduct and principle, not merely reputation. A woman who had previously fallen from virtue but subsequently reformed and became virtuous in conduct qualified as chaste within the meaning of these statutes. The inquiry was into the person's actual moral state at the relevant time, not her past history or community standing.
2. Chaste character. A distinct sub-concept referring to personal virtue and moral purity as a matter of what a person genuinely is — not what others believe about them. Courts distinguished chaste character from reputation for chastity: the former concerns inner moral quality; the latter concerns social perception.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Sexually pure, abstaining from immoral or unlawful sexual intercourse; also used as a synonym for celibate or virginal; pure and virtuous in conduct.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Pure from unlawful sexual intercourse; virtuous; continent. Also: pure in thought and act; modest; innocent; free from lewdness or indecency. Extended to writing and style — refined, correct, free from barbarism.
The legal meaning narrows the common meaning in one critical respect: ordinary usage equates "chaste" with virginal innocence or strict abstinence, suggesting an all-or-nothing moral state. Legal usage, particularly in seduction statutes, rejected this absolutism. A person who had once transgressed but genuinely reformed was legally chaste. The law looked to present actual virtue, not an unblemished history. This distinction was litigated frequently, and researchers who import the common meaning into historical legal texts will misread how courts actually applied the term.
Common Confusion
"Chaste" and "reputation for chastity" are distinct legal concepts that courts took care to separate. Chastity as reputation concerns what the community believes about a person's sexual conduct — it was relevant in defamation actions (particularly slander per se for words imputing unchastity) and in certain evidentiary contexts. Chaste character, by contrast, is an inquiry into actual virtue. A person could have an excellent reputation for chastity while not being legally chaste, and vice versa. Conflating the two leads to misreading both the elements of seduction claims and the evidentiary rules governing character evidence in those proceedings.
Why It Matters in Research
This term is functionally obsolete in most modern statutory codes. Researchers will encounter it almost exclusively in historical sources — nineteenth and early twentieth century seduction cases, criminal codes predating the sexual revolution, and tort pleadings from those eras. Several research traps are worth flagging:
First, the reformation doctrine embedded in the legal definition is counterintuitive. Historical cases from Georgia, Iowa, New York, Alabama, and Michigan all affirmed that prior unchastity followed by genuine reform restored legal chastity. Researchers reading case outcomes without understanding this doctrine may misjudge why courts ruled as they did.
Second, the line between chaste character and reputation for chastity shaped pleading and proof requirements differently. A seduction plaintiff generally had to allege and prove actual chastity; a defamation plaintiff claiming slander for words imputing unchastity was fighting over reputation. The procedural postures differ, and the evidentiary standards differ accordingly.
Third, Anderson's entry notes that a female might have "fallen" from ignorance or other circumstances yet still qualify as chaste — a reflection of period assumptions about agency and knowledge that courts sometimes embedded in jury instructions. Modern researchers should read such passages critically as legal artifacts rather than moral pronouncements.
Fourth, jurisdiction matters here more than usual. Seduction was codified and litigated differently across states, and the precise definition of "chaste" sometimes varied by statute. The cases Bouvier cites span multiple states, suggesting the general doctrine was widespread but implemented with local variation.
Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier and Anderson agree on the core definition: actual virtue in conduct and principle, with the reformation doctrine firmly in place. Both emphasize the actual/reputation distinction — a point Anderson makes explicit by defining "chaste character" as referring to "moral qualities — to what a person really is" rather than to social standing or perception.
Both dictionaries reflect the seduction-statute context as the primary legal application, which accurately captures nineteenth-century usage. What the historical dictionaries do not address is the term's appearance in defamation law, where "chaste" or "chastity" appeared in the common-law categories of slander per se — words falsely imputing unchastity to a woman were actionable without proof of special damages in most jurisdictions. Researchers should not assume the seduction-statute definition maps perfectly onto the defamation context, where reputation rather than actual virtue was the operative concept.
The Webster's 1913 extension of "chaste" to literary style (refined, correct, free from barbarism) has no legal application and should not confuse researchers, but it does confirm that the term carried a broader cultural valence than pure sexual virtue in the period when most of these legal sources were written.
Jurisdictional Note
Seduction as a cognizable tort or crime has been abolished or substantially limited in most U.S. jurisdictions, taking "chaste" with it as an operative legal term. Where the term persists, it is typically in construing old statutes or litigating historical claims. Researchers working in states that retained seduction causes of action into the mid-twentieth century — including several Southern and Midwestern jurisdictions — should consult state-specific case law rather than assuming Bouvier's multi-state synthesis controls.