The Greater the Desire, the Greater the Chastity

Perhaps the corresponding female virtue is . . . Virtue.

The YW general presidency suggested as much years ago. I don’t think this was very popular. But, perhaps, true.

It also lines up with the phrase: “The mother of all living.”

I suggest for Virtue A: womanliness.
The form of Vice 1 that I have seen a lot of is: aloofness. The “I don’t even think about those things” withdrawal to secure solitude.

This pattern came to mind one day a couple decades ago when I noticed a young woman on a bus wearing a Muslim head covering. It seemed an unfortunate loss to the world as the hair of young women is a lovely thing adding beauty to the world. I considered the nations where such head coverings are universal, such public beauty absent, and the only proper way to see a lovely head of hair is to marry and enjoy that delight privately bestowed by a wife. My impression is that this pattern has not improved the virtue of the men of those nations.

And yet, woman have more lovely physical features than just their hair, and many in my American nation scoff at any modesty at all. Access to every form of female beauty is not improving Americans either.

Never extreme is virtuous.

Repeating myself from a couple years ago:
Teach sexual chastity to the 13 year olds and 16 year olds as you and they discuss what they should be preparing to do in three years. Teach them about chastity as part of preparing them to enter situations, which they very much should enter, where they will need to keep hold of chastity as one of their values, situations that involve spending hours with those they are attracted to and are becoming familiar with. But if we train them to stay aloof from the opposite sex until they have returned from missions and can safely marry, then we end up with births of children in the church declining 25% in one decade. What we want our youth and young adults to do, prepare to marry by actively interacting chastely with the opposite sex, is counter to what all around them are doing. We are the only ones who will guide them in this path of being neither fleshy beasts nor arid ghosts, but whole souls.

“What we want our youth and young adults to do, prepare to marry by actively interacting chastely with the opposite sex”
John, this education is what I missed out on when I was young and it caused problems for me for me forever. No one ever told me that feeling of sexual attraction are normal and natural for females. I thought I was weird and abnormal. No one taught me how to converse with and interact with the opposite sex; I guess all the adults thought it was intuitive. I’m not sure I did any better with my own children, because while raising them I still struggled with my own inadequacies and deficiencies. But since then I’ve learned so much that I’d sure like a chance for a do over.
And Mahana, I agree that the attribute of “virtue” is not used or understood in the way Sister Dalton taught. I agree that in it truest form it is the feminine of “virility”.
Satan has done a bang up job of confusing the sexes and creating huge problems between males and females, disrupting the Father’s plan for us to marry and create families.
I’m not sure Pres. Oaks desire for youth to marry earlier and have families will come to pass as he expects (but maybe he can see better than I can) as most young people have been taught that it’s more important to get an education, and experience a lot of life (“play”) before settling down; and too many buy into the lie that it’s too expensive to have children, and they interfere with our plans to travel and play, etc. anyway. Or, on the other hand, they marry young and put off having children because they feel they have plenty of time to do so.
We married late, at age 30/31, and I felt an urgency to have children. We celebrated our 10th anniversary just after the birth of our fifth child. I’ve always wished I could have had the decade of my 20’s to have had another five!

Truth is, I am not a big fan of the term Chastity, because it is a negative virtue – it is what you are not doing. I much prefer to phrase it in terms of what we do want. Virtue is Family, and what sustains and preserves the family.

I think more time phrasing Chastity in terms of entering into covenant marriage, and making lots of big fat babies would help put context and meaning into why we have do’s and don’t’s. And it would, crucially, teach people that marriage isn’t just an item on a divine checklist. It is the way of happiness and our purpose here on Earth.

Right now we have an emphasis on going to the temple regularly and having a current temple recommend. Perhaps we should add having children to that list.

Virility is descended from words that meant that which is common to a man, and now holds place as that which is ideal for a man, a man in his proper state, muscular, energetic, hairy, a little smelly a little dangerous maybe, or at least prepared to be if masked by the virtue of Civility, where he shaves his face and wears deodorant for the good of the Civitas. Civility and Chastity describe a lot of the same virtue-space I think.

This Virility is something that’s been sought after, the Millennial Lumberjack archetype is a parodic form of it, a frigid form as opposed to the unchaste form of the perfumed seducer with his shirt half open and a rose in his teeth. I’m not sure of its relationship to Authority, which a man should be expressing, and which the muscles and hair are outward signs of a physical ability to impose, as is money; there are frigid and unchaste forms of Authority.

A female Virility could be called Femininity or Muliebrity, the first being unfortunately lumberjacked in its own way and the second being obscure and a little bit funny-sounding. A unisex word approaching the connotations of Virility is Sensuality, which is neighbors with Sexuality but is not quite so unchaste, and I think provides a fine counter to the implied distance of prudery/frigidity; there’s a sense of being sexy and the presence of eros and a sense of just provoking the senses, just being beautiful.

A concept lurking here is a friendly eroticism, a sensual pleasure obtained from other people, the idea there is a path of eros which we should complete only with our spouses but which is appropriate to venture down slightly with others of varying relationships. Lots of third rails in that discussion (is a man admiring another man’s body, for the dedication of his training or just for its sensual beauty, inappropriate or homosexual? this is where we touch the BAPsphere; should you appreciate the beauty of your neighbor’s wife fully the same way you appreciate the beauty of his garden? Is that uplifting or insulting?) and the instinct might be “no, not at all, no sexual feelings anywhere but marriage” and I think the logical outcome of that is heavy robes for everyone. Previous generations I think had a better sense of the desire to be around beautiful people that one is not going to engage in carnality with, but there’s been a loss of a productive middle with the spread of pornography, and we’re all wearing invisible burqas now.

All these comments are top comments

“Teach sexual chastity to the 13 year olds and 16 year olds as you and they discuss what they should be preparing to do in three years. Teach them about chastity as part of preparing them to enter situations, which they very much should enter, where they will need to keep hold of chastity as one of their values, situations that involve spending hours with those they are attracted to and are becoming familiar with. But if we train them to stay aloof from the opposite sex until they have returned from missions and can safely marry, then we end up with births of children in the church declining 25% in one decade. What we want our youth and young adults to do, prepare to marry by actively interacting chastely with the opposite sex, is counter to what all around them are doing. We are the only ones who will guide them in this path of being neither fleshy beasts nor arid ghosts, but whole souls.”

Extremely good

A good word might be ‘earthy’

But the one that grabs me most is ‘fecund’

Or maybe nubile in the original sense of weddable, willing to be approached

Dionysian?

The definition of ‘virtuous’ in the 1828 Webster dictionary would seem to imply a corollary to ‘virile’ that is quite obvious, so I second its use. Incidentally, my current stake president – who was also my stake president in my teens – used virtue and virtuous in this manner after explaining its additional meanings to us. His sons are all married, as are most of his daughters now, I believe.
I especially like the 4th definition: ‘Efficacious by inherent qualities’.
https://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/virtuous

I think the strong argument for the current situation is that with desire out of our lives except in marriage we would have it absolutely siloed there, with the first kiss at the temple altar and such. Marriage would be purely a matter of rational negotiation, of shared values and commitments. This is a seminary teacher doctrine, not official just an optimization by enthusiastic facilitators who didn’t realize how easy it would be to delay marriage as a cold eternal contract, how hard it would be to negotiate romance without experience of desire, how frail many marriages made purely out of desire to be righteous became.

Ladies and gentlemen, there has been some deep and true doctrine here, as well as things expressed better than I am capable.

Just an interesting bit to add,, to deepen the already deep waters we are in, virtue in both the Old Testament and the New Testament, is used as a synonym of power. For instance, when they warn against spending your strength with harlots, that wasn’t a euphemism, they saw chastity and power AS THE SAME THING.

Thus the two vices above would be wasted strength, and denying your power until it dies.

[] – I have heard it said, that if it wasn’t for sex, men and women wouldn’t have anything to do with each other. This doesn’t appear to be something we can dismiss lightly.

I am really taken with that fourth definition of virtue

E.C., could you spell out the Webster’s defn. of virtue that works as a parallel?

Something that I hope will not be lost is that manliness and womanliness properly developed, cultivated, and expressed are not solely private virtues shared with a marriage partner, current, future, or potential. There is proper public expression of these virtues that edifies all around.

That relates to something Elder Packer spoke of, that in romance feelings have to develop in a proper pace and it is quite natural to be turned off by a potential partner taking things too fast. There is a needed space to recognize that someone is an attractive man or woman, for all the world to see and appreciate, before personal feelings and hopes have any place.

It’s worth remembering that “virtue” comes from the Latin word “virtus,” a broader term the Romans used when referring to the attributes that made a man manly. It’s a term that encompasses a lot more than chastity as we understand it today.

At Roman funerals (especially for the father of a family during the times predating the empire) it was customary for family and friends to name the virtus of the deceased, like his courage, strength, loyalty, honesty, intelligence, etc. I’m pretty sure Sister Dalton was tapping into the roots of the term “virtue” when she put so much emphasis on it during her time as Young Women General President.

One thing that has greatly bothered me, is the many reports I have heard of sexless marriages, even among the Saints. With the significant caveat of mental and physical health, there is no excuse for this, and it is a lack of virtue. It destroys marriages and the example it sets for younger generations tells them to avoid marriage and the law of chastity. It tells them that the only way they will ever get sexual satisfaction, is through non-marital sex.

As much as we need to teach our youth and single members to wait, I humbly say we should also teach our married members to be diligent about sex. We have pulled back so far from desire, that it isn’t just the unmarried youth that struggle with what we took for granted.

I am a member of a married student BYU stake. At one of our Stake Conferences last year, a GA 70 was directing. His three main points (from all of the sessions) (as I remember them) were
-stay physically active and eat healthy
– men, stay free from porn and associated evils. They are life and marriage ruiners.
-women, have sex with your husband and don’t hold that as a bargaining chip over their heads until they fulfill [x]. That is a life and marriage ruiner

Was coming to suggest “fecundity” but I see G’s already been there.

There are lots of people in (or claiming to be in) the church who want to teach about “healthy sexuality” in marriage. While I like the concept, I don’t trust any of these people. So at least for women, I think this is a virtue that’s hard to learn because we don’t see it modeled and can’t trust many of those claiming to have insight about it. The “liturgical” experience of just living a happy, healthy marriage (including sex) can do a lot to teach both husband and wife. By liturgical I mean there is a deep and important underlying meaning to the rituals and sacraments, but you don’t necessarily understand it. Yet just living it is its own kind of education. Beyond that…I don’t know how to help girls and women develop this [fecundity, virility, virtue] in today’s world. I would like to know.

>By liturgical I mean there is a deep and important underlying meaning to the rituals and sacraments, but you don’t necessarily understand it

That packs a lot of wisdom