CHASTITY - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

CHASTITYAuthored

The Law Mind • 1162 words

Definition

Chastity, in legal usage, refers to the condition of abstaining from unlawful sexual intercourse; the personal virtue or state of purity that the law historically recognized as a protected interest, particularly for women. Courts and legislatures treated chastity not merely as a moral quality but as a legally cognizable status bearing on criminal liability, civil damages, and evidentiary admissibility.

The term carried two related but distinct legal meanings:

1. As a virtue or status: The condition of freedom from unlawful sexual connection. This meaning grounded prosecutions for seduction, fornication, and adultery, as well as the common-law right of a woman to use deadly force to defend herself against rape. The law treated a woman's chastity as analogous in some respects to bodily integrity — something that could be forcibly taken and legally defended.

2. As a character trait in evidence: "Chaste character," as used in many American seduction statutes, meant actual prior personal virtue — not mere reputation. Courts drew a sharp distinction between a woman having a reputation for chastity and actually being chaste; statutes typically required the latter as an element of the offense of seduction.

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Common Language

Modern common usage (Wiktionary): The quality of abstaining from any sexual activity considered immoral; avoidance of sexual sins.

Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): The state of being chaste; purity of body; freedom from unlawful sexual intercourse; also moral purity more broadly, and, in archaic usage, the celibate life.

The gap matters for research: The ordinary meaning of chastity is general and moralistic; the legal meaning was narrower and operationalized. Courts asked not whether a woman was virtuous in some broad spiritual sense but whether she had refrained from prior unlawful sexual intercourse — a factual inquiry that could be contested and litigated. This distinction between moral character and legal status shaped both what prosecutors had to prove and what defense attorneys could put before juries.

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Common Confusion

Two persistent confusions appear in historical sources:

First, chastity and reputation for chastity were treated as interchangeable in popular speech but not in law. Seduction statutes in most American states required proof of actual chaste character as an element of the offense; a woman's mere social reputation was insufficient standing alone. Some courts and legal writers blurred this line, and researchers should not assume that language praising a woman's "reputation" satisfied the statutory requirement.

Second, defense of chastity and defense of person were conceptually distinct but frequently merged in early American and English authorities. The justification for a woman killing a would-be rapist was sometimes framed as defense of chastity and sometimes as defense of bodily integrity. The practical legal consequences were the same, but the framing mattered for how courts analyzed the act: defense of chastity implied a property-like interest in sexual purity; defense of person implied the universal right to resist violent assault.

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Why It Matters in Research

Chastity is a historically saturated term that researchers will encounter across criminal law, tort law, evidence, and defamation, but its meaning shifted significantly across time and jurisdiction. Several navigational points:

Seduction statutes are the primary site where chastity appears as a formal legal element. These statutes proliferated across American states in the nineteenth century and were largely abolished or fell into disuse through the twentieth. The statutory language varied considerably — some statutes required "previous chaste character," others "a chaste and virtuous woman" — and courts interpreted these formulations differently. Researchers working with these statutes must read the exact statutory text and contemporaneous case law, not just dictionary definitions.

Defamation is a second major research area. Words imputing unchastity to a woman were treated as actionable per se under the common law in most American jurisdictions — meaning damages were presumed without proof of special harm. This made chastity one of the few personal attributes whose imputation in words alone could sustain a defamation action without more. The Rapalje & Lawrence and Bouvier entries flag this, though neither fully develops the damages framework.

The self-defense justification documented in Bouvier and Rapalje — that a woman may kill an attacker to defend her chastity — is significant because it extended deadly-force justification beyond the usual imminent-death-or-great-bodily-harm standard in some jurisdictions. Researchers examining the history of rape law and self-defense doctrine will find this usage load-bearing.

The decline of chastity as a legal concept tracks broader reform movements: the repeal of seduction statutes, the abolition of per se defamation for sexual imputation in some states, and the adoption of rape shield laws that restricted inquiry into a complainant's prior sexual history. Modern legal materials rarely use the term, and its appearance in a historical source should prompt researchers to identify which legal doctrine is invoking it.

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Historical Dictionary Support

The four source dictionaries present a consistent core: chastity is purity or freedom from unlawful sexual intercourse, distinguished from the broader common meaning of celibacy or general moral virtue. Bouvier and Rapalje & Lawrence both extend the definition into doctrine, noting the self-defense justification and flagging defamation applications, while Black's (1st and 2nd editions) provide the more spare definitional statement supplemented by case citations.

Black's 2nd edition is the most useful of the four for research because it introduces the separate sub-entry on "chaste character" and anchors the definition to American cases, including People v. Kehoe and State v. Carron, which are real decisions addressing the evidentiary meaning of chaste character in seduction prosecutions.

Bouvier's note that solicitation of chastity by letter to a married woman was indictable — citing a Connecticut case — reflects a strand of nineteenth-century American law that criminalized conduct well short of completed adultery. Researchers should note that this principle was not universally adopted; Bouvier himself cites English authority to the contrary.

What the historical dictionaries largely omit: any treatment of chastity as a gendered legal construct, the procedural mechanisms by which a woman's prior sexual history was admitted to rebut the chaste-character element, or the legislative history of the seduction statutes. Those gaps mean researchers cannot rely on dictionary sources alone when reconstructing how chastity functioned in practice.

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Jurisdictional Note

American courts varied substantially in how they defined "previous chaste character" under seduction statutes — some required actual abstinence from all prior intercourse, others required only that the woman had not previously been seduced or debauched, permitting prior consensual relations within certain bounds. English common law was generally narrower in criminalizing mere solicitation and did not adopt the American seduction statute framework. Researchers should treat any general statement about the law of chastity as jurisdiction-specific until verified.

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CHASTITYmain

Black's Law Dictionary • 1891

Purity; continence. virtue which prevents the unlawful inter- course of the sexes. Also the state of purity or abstinence from unlawful sexual connec- tion.

CHASTITYmain

Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928

That virtue which pre- vents the unlawful commerce of the sexes. A woman may defend her chastity by killing her assailant. See SELF-DEFENCE. Sending a letter to a married woman so- liciting her to commit adultery is an indict- able offerce; 7 Conn. 266. See 14 Pa. 226. In England, and perhaps elsewhere, the mere solicitation of chastity is not indict- able; 2 Chit. Pr. 478. Words charging a woman with a violation of chastity are actionable in themselves, because they charge her with a crime punishable by law, and of a character to degrade, disgrace, and exclude her from society; 2 Conn. 707; 5 Gray 2,5; 2 Ν. Η. 194; Heard, Lib. & Sl. § 36; 5 Johns. 190; 11 Metc. 552; 32 Pa. 275; but not so in the District of Columbia; 91 U. S. 225. CHATTEL (Norm. Fr. goods, of any kind). Every species of property, movable or immovable, which is less than a free- hold. In the Grand Coustumier of Normandy it is de- scribed as a mere movable, but is set in opposition to a fief or feud; so that not only goods, but whatever was not a feud or fee, were accounted chattels; and it is in this latter sense that our law adopts it. 2 Bla. Com. 285. Real chattels are interests which are an- nexed to or concern real estate: as, a lease for years of land. And the duration of the lease is immaterial, whether it be for one or a thousand years, provided there be a cer- tainty about it and a reversion or remainder in some other person. A lease to continue until a certain sum of money can be raised out of the rents is of the same description; and so in fact will be found to be any other interest in real estate whose duration is limited to a time certain beyond which it cannot subsist, and which is, therefore, something less than a freehold. A lease giving the exclusive privilege for a term of years of boring and digging for oil and other minerals is also a chattel; 120 Pa. 590. Personal chattels are properly things movable, which may be carried about by the owner; such as animals, household stuff, money, jewels, corn, garments, and everything else that can be put in motion and transferred from one place to another; 2 Kent 340; Co. Litt. 48 : 4 Co. 6; 5 Mass. 419; 1 Ν. Η. 350. Chattels, whether real or personal, are treated as personal property in every re- spect, and, in case of the death of the owner, usually belong to the executor or adminis- trator, and not to the heir at law. There are some chattels, however, which, as Chanceller Kent observes, though they be Inovable, yet are necessarily attached to the freehold: contributing to its value and en- joyment, they go along with it in the same path of descent or alienation. This is the case with deeds, and other papers which constitute the muniments of title to the inheritance; the shelves and family pic- tures in a house; and the posts and rails of an enclosure. It is also understood that pigeons in a pigeon-house, deer in a park, and fish in an artificial pond go with the inheritance, as heirlooms to the heir at law. But fixtures, or such things of a personal nature as are attached to the realty, whether for a temporary purpose or otherwise, be- come chattels, or not, according to circum- stances; Mitch. R. P. 21. See FIXTURES; 2 Kent 843; Co. Litt. 20 a, 118; 12 Price, p. 163; 11 Co. 50b; 1 Chit. Pr. 90; 8 Viner, Abr. 296; 11 id. 166; 14 id. 109; Bacon, Abr. Baron, etc. C, 2; Dane, Abr. Index; Comyns, Dig. Biens, A.

CHASTITYmain

Rapalje & Lawrence • 1888

--Purity, or freedom from unlawful sexual intercourse. The law justifies a woman killing one who attempts to ravish her, and so, too, the husband or but not if he takes them in adultery by consent, for the one is forcible and felonious, but not the other. (1 Hale P. С. 485, 486; 4 Broom & H. Com. 214.) In the latter case, however, the homicide may be excusable. Words attributing want of chastity to a woman are actionable per se. 2 Conn. 707; 5 Gray (Mass.) 5.

CHASTITYn.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

The state of being chaste; purity of body; freedom from unlawful sexual intercourse. She . . . hath preserved her spotless chastity. T. Carew. Moral purity. So dear to heaven is saintly chastity, That, when a soul is found sicerely so A thousand liveried angels lackey her. Milton. The unmarried life; celibacy. [Obs.] Chaucer. Chasteness.

chastitynoun

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

Wiktionary contributors • CC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
Extracted and formatted for display by Law Mind. Source link opens the current Wiktionary page and its contributor history; it is not a frozen copy of this extract.

The quality of being chaste: the state of abstaining from any sexual activity considered immoral; avoidance of sexual sins.

Chastityname

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

A female given name from English from the virtue chastity.

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