|
Virginity is the state of a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse.〔(【引用サイトリンク】publisher=''Merriam-Webster'' )〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】publisher=TheFreeDictionary.com )〕 There are cultural and religious traditions which place special value and significance on this state, especially in the case of unmarried females, associated with notions of personal purity, honor and worth. Like chastity, the concept of virginity has traditionally involved sexual abstinence. The concept of virginity usually involves moral or religious issues and can have consequences in terms of social status and in interpersonal relationships.〔See here () and (pages 47-49 ) for views on what constitutes virginity loss and therefore sexual intercourse or other sexual activity; source discusses male virginity, how gay and lesbian individuals define virginity loss, and how the majority of researchers and heterosexuals define virginity loss/"technical virginity" by whether or not a person has engaged in penile-vaginal sex. 〕 Although virginity has social implications and had significant legal implications in some societies in the past, it has no legal consequences in most societies today. The term ''virgin'' originally only referred to sexually inexperienced women, but has evolved to encompass a range of definitions, as found in traditional, modern, and ethical concepts.〔 Heterosexual individuals may or may not consider loss of virginity to occur only through penile-vaginal penetration,〔〔 while people of other sexual orientations often include oral sex, anal sex or mutual masturbation in their definitions of losing one's virginity.〔〔 ==Etymology== The word ''virgin'' comes via Old French ''virgine'' from the root form of Latin ラテン語:''virgo'', genitive ラテン語:''virgin-is'', meaning literally "maiden" or "virgin"—a sexually intact young woman〔Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short, ('virgo' ), in ''A Latin Dictionary''.〕 or "sexually inexperienced woman". As in Latin, the English word is also often used with wider reference, by relaxing the age, gender or sexual criteria.〔('virgin' ) in ''American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language''.〕 In this case, more mature women can be virgins (The Virgin Queen), men can be virgins, and potential initiates into many fields can be colloquially termed ''virgins''; for example, a skydiving "virgin". In the latter usage, ''virgin'' means uninitiated. The Latin word likely arose by analogy with a suit of lexemes based on ラテン語:''vireo'', meaning "to be green, fresh or flourishing", mostly with botanic reference—in particular, ラテン語:''virga'' meaning "strip of wood".〔('Virgin' ), ''Online Etymology Dictionary''.〕 The first known use of ''virgin'' in English is found in a Middle English manuscript held at Trinity College, Cambridge of about 1200: In this, and many later contexts, the reference is specifically Christian, alluding to members of the Ordo Virginum (Order of Virgins), which applies to the consecrated virgins known to have existed since the early church from the writings of the Church Fathers.〔('Consecrated virgins and widows', ) ''Catechism of the Catholic Church'' 922–24. 〕 By about 1300, the word was expanded to apply also to Mary, the mother of Jesus, hence to sexual virginity explicitly: Further expansion of the word to include virtuous (or naïve) young women, irrespective of religious connection, occurred over about another century, until by about 1400 we find: These are three of the eighteen definitions of ''virgin'' from the first edition of the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED1'', pages 230-232). Most of the ''OED1'' definitions, however, are similar. The German word for "virgin" is ''Jungfrau''. ''Jungfrau'' literally means "young woman", but is not used in this sense. Instead "junge Frau" can be used. The rather dated German word for a young (unmarried) woman, without implications regarding sexuality, is ''Fräulein''. ''Fräulein'' was used in German as a title of respect, equivalent to current usage of Miss in English. ''Jungfrau'' is the word reserved specifically for sexual inexperience. As ''Frau'' means "woman", it suggests a female referent. Unlike English, German also has a specific word for a male virgin ''Jüngling'' ("''Youngling''"). It is, however, dated too and rarely used. ''Jungfrau'', with some masculine modifier, is more typical, as evidenced by the film, ''The 40-Year-Old Virgin'', about a 40-year-old ''male'' virgin, titled in German, "Jungfrau (40), männlich, sucht…".〔(Release dates for ''The 40-Year-Old Virgin'' ) at the Internet Movie Database〕 Note that the term used for the starsign virgo also is Jungfrau, which makes the above movie title ambiguous. German also distinguishes between young women and girls, who are denoted by the word ''Mädchen''. The English cognate "maid" was often used to imply virginity, especially in poetry. German is not the only language to have a specific name for male virginity; in French, male virgins are called "puceau". The Greek word for "virgin" is ''parthenos'' (παρθένος, see Parthenon). Although typically applied to women, like English, it is also applied to men, in both cases specifically denoting absence of sexual experience. When used of men, it does not carry a strong association of "never-married" status. However, in reference to women, historically, it was sometimes used to refer to an engaged woman—''parthenos autou'' (παρθένος αὐτού, his virgin) = his fiancée as opposed to ''gunē autou'' (γυνή αὐτού, his woman) = his wife. This distinction is necessary due to there being no specific word for wife (or husband) in Greek. By extension from its primary sense, the idea that a virgin has a sexual "blank slate",〔"The emotional stress of serial non-marriage plays havoc with the possibility of partnering for life." Angela Shanahan, ('Sex revolution robbed us of fertility', ) ''The Australian'' 15 September 2007.〕 unchanged by any past intimate connection or experience,〔 can imply that the person is of unadulterated purity. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Virginity」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|