Young Women's Virginity in Ancient Rome

Abstract

Life cycles of Roman women were closely marked by their personal lives, their bodies and
their capacity to procreate, and not by their civic capacities as it happened to men. One of the
stages in the lives of women was determined and named after Virginity as the previous step to
fecundity. The category of virgins included all young women before marriage and was associated
with the continuity of the social and familiar system and that is the reason why it had an almost
sacred character expressed in public and private rituals and mainly in the City institution of the
Vestal Virgins.