Note 6 — VIRGINITY AND ITS TRADITIONS.
Reading edition
“That this eagerness after virginity is not an original lust, I must, indeed, prove from the opinion of a certain remote people, who esteem the taking of a maidenhead as a laborious and illiberal practice, which they delegate to men hired for that purpose, ere themselves condescend to lie with their wives; who are returned with disgrace to their friends, if it be discovered that they have brought their virginity with them.”—The Battles of Venus: The Hague, 1760, quoted by Pisanus Fraxi in his Index Librorum Prohibitorum. Vide also post in this Study.