. Now a third
form has appeared: men introduce young girls into their houses and keep
them there permanently, respecting their virginity. "What," Chrysostom
asks, "is the reason? It seems to me that life in common with a woman is
sweet, even outside conjugal union and fleshly commerce. That is my
feeling; and perhaps it is not my feeling alone; it may also be that of
these men. They would not hold their honor so cheap nor give rise to such
scandals if this pleasure were not violent and tyrannical.... That there
should really be a pleasure in this which produces a love more ardent than
conjugal union may surprise you at first. But when I give you the proofs
you will agree that it is so." The absence of restraint to desire in
marriage, he continues, often leads to speedy disgust, and even apart from
this, sexual intercourse, pregnancy, delivery, lactation, the bringing up
of children, and all the pains and anxieties that accompany these things
soon destroy youth and dull the point of pleasure. The virgin is free from
these burdens. She retains her vigor and youthfulness, and even at the age
of forty may rival the young nubile girl. "A double ardor thus burns in
the heart of him who lives with her, and the gratification of desire never
extinguishes the bright flame which ever continues to increase in
strength." Chrysostom describes minutely all the little cares and
attentions which the modern girls of his time required, and which these
men delighted to expend on their virginal sweethearts whether in public or
in private. He cannot help thinking, however, that the man who lavishes
kisses and caresses on a woman whose virginity he retains is putting
himself somewhat in the position of Tantalus. But this new refinement of
tender chastity, which came as a delicious discovery to the early
Christians who had resolutely thrust away the licentiousness of the pagan
world, was deeply rooted, as we discover from the frequency with which the
grave Fathers of the Church, apprehensive of scandal, felt called upon to
reprove it, though their condemnation is sometimes not without a trace of
secret sympathy.[75]

There was one form in which the new Christian chastity flourished
exuberantly and unchecked: it conquered literature. The most charming,
and, we may be sure, the most popular literature of the early Church lay
in the innumerable romances of erotic chastity--to some extent, it may
well be, founded on fact--which are embodied to-day