Note 620 — 2. RAPE.

Virginity in females has been very differently estimated by different nations; in the first ages of the Christian church so highly was it honoured and esteemed, that women were admitted to make solemn vows of it in public; and yet among the Jews it was held infamous for a woman to die a maid. In Peru and several other provinces in South America, we are assured by Pedro de Cieca, in the history of the Incas, &c. that men never marry, but on condition that the next relation or friend of the maid shall undertake to take away her virginity; and our countryman, Lawson, relates the like of some of the Indian nations of Carolina—So little is the Flos Virginis valued in some places!

De virginitatis signis. This has been a very favourite subject with the speculative writers of both ancient and modern times, but none appear to have come to any very satisfactory result upon the question; nor is it even yet agreed in what the quality consists; some will have it a moral, others a purely corporeal qualification. “Porro virginitas, dicit Zacchias, si magis materialiter sumatur, nihil aliud est quam naturalis constitutio et cohœrentia vasorum mulibrium, quæ sic accepta potest facillime amitti; destructa enim vel manibus, vel alio quocumque instrumento naturali constitutione et cohœrentia earum partium, illico destructa dicitur et ipsa virginitas.” 2 M. L. 1. 4. tit. 2. If the words culpa muliebri, aut coitu virili, had been added, we might have acceded to the latter part of this definition; the matter however is rather one of etymological curiosity, than of medical jurisprudence, and therefore we shall proceed to quote from the best authorities we have been able to discover on the subject, the various signs by which this state may be ascertained; with this reservation always of our own opinion, that though the presence of all the enumerated circumstances may be taken as sufficient proof of virginity, the absence of some or many of them, especially if explained by physical causes, is no evidence to the contrary. “Le fanciulle sane ed intatte hanno le parte esterne della generazione dure, sode, lucide, e di un colore incarnato; l’imene intero; le labra della vulva bene unite; le nimfe picciole e coperte; la clitoride col preperzio corto; le rughe della vagina eminenti, apparente e fra loro contigue; i seni mucosi profondi; l’orifizio dell’ uretra angustissimo. Lasciando a parte i ridicoli segni tolti dai peli del petigone più o meno crespi, dalla sibilosa escrizione delle orine; dalla voce; dalla grosseza del collo; dal odorato, come vien detto di un bravo Religioso di Praga che al solo odore sapea distinguere una vergine donna da una deflorata; dal resultato degli sperimenti fatti colla polveri di agata, di succino, di ambra, che legonsi appresso molte Scrittori, che se divertono con bagatelle: noi divideremo i sobraesposti segni di virginità in primarj ed in secondarj. Tra i primi, creduti i meno fallaci si contano le rugosità della vagina lumide e spesse; l’oscula della medesima angusto; l’imene presente; ed il frenulo alto e molto teso.” Such are the signs laid down by Tortosa, vol. 2. p. 4.; following Nessi, Zacchias, and Rœderer; the writer then proceeds to examine each of these circumstances with considerable minuteness.