Abstinence

Across times and cultures, individuals and groups of sexually mature people have been culturally defined and socially positioned as celibates on the basis of temporary or long-term abstinence from certain types of sex. This abstinence may vary in relation to volition (it can be elected or imposed) and temporality (it can be temporary or permanent), but it always is related to the sociocultural significance of the body and its sexuality (Sobo and Bell 2001).

ECONOMIES OF ABSTINENCE

Although people of any age or sexual orientation can be abstinent, in the United States and European culture "abstinence" typically refers to the specifically heterosexual activities of biologically mature persons. This is due partly to the relationship between sex and reproduction, which is embedded in a political economy of kinship.

Kinship systems often require absolute celibacy in certain categories of persons to preserve symbolic capital (e.g., honor and purity) that is essential for the status of the family as a whole. Requiring female virginity before marriage is an example. The relationship among the symbolic value of virginity, regulation of reproduction, and the flow of material resources explains why most societies that impose sexual abstinence on adolescent girls prescribe a dowry system. A girl is not only a potential wife but an heiress who is expected to attract a good mate. Abstinence prevents the girl from becoming pregnant with an inappropriate suitor who will be able to press claims on her, her child, her future children, and her dowry (Schlegel 2001).

Along these lines, prosperous families in medieval Europe gained if females retired to convents after being widowed. Allowing a widow to enter a convent and make a vow of abstinence entailed a "small immediate loss to her husband's lineage but a large gain in resources in the long run by preventing remarriage and the possibility of conflict of interest between her former husband's kin" (Hager 1992, p. 392).

Abstinence can benefit kin directly by allowing them to reproduce. In bio-evolutionary theory this is called "inclusive fitness." In humans, mechanisms of kin recognition can be manipulated to this end. Forms of institutionalized celibacy such as monasticism use this tactic by introducing metaphorical kin terms (e.g., brother) and using visual cues such as uniforms and hairstyles to encourage what evolutionary biologists call "false phenotypic matches," meaning they "look the same" or as if they were immediately related. This can motivate adherence to vows of abstinence (Qirko 2001).

PERSONAL AND SOCIAL IDENTITY

Abstinence does not only benefit others. It assists individuals in achieving personal and culturally recommended goals and thus is a potent ingredient in identity construction. This is clear in contexts in which sexuality is associated with a discourse of purity and pollution, for example, in cases in which "each sex is a danger to the other through contact with sexual fluids" (Douglas 1966, p. 3). Avoiding such contact helps one maintain purity and thus reinforces one's social standing and sense of self.

Additionally, when people subscribe to a hydraulic model of sexual energy, in which forces not expressed in one way will be expressed in another, they may practice abstinence to save energy for other identity-related pursuits. For example, self-help literature that promotes the "biomoral" benefits of male celibacy (brahamcarya) in northern India, such as increased wisdom, stamina, and personal power, has a wide circulation (Alter 1997). Other examples connecting abstinence to identity formation include the Vatican's claim that permanent celibacy confers spiritual gifts that are important to the priestliness of the clergy.

CHARISMA AND CONTROL

Control of sexual energy commonly is regarded as an important technique for the generation and maintenance of socially beneficial shamanic or spiritual powers. As a result of her abstinence, a celibate spinster (celibe) in rural Mexico may ignore everyday female behavioral imperatives and occupy special ceremonial roles that provide "a link between the communal ritual of adult males and the familial ritual of adult females" (Arnold 1978, p. 53).

Interpretations of celibacy often involve speculation about its effect on the disposition of celibate persons or institutions. Celibacy often is construed as a source of charismatic authority. For example, Max Weber notes that "the permanent abstinence of charismatic priests and religious virtuosi derives primarily from the view that chastity, as a highly extraordinary type of behavior, is a symptom of charismatic qualities and a source of valuable ecstatic abilities" (Weber 1978, p. 603).

Weber describes two fundamental positions that promote celibacy as an instrument of salvation. The first is "mystical flight from the world" (p. 603). The other is asceticism, which represents sex as inimical to "rational, ascetic alertness, self control and the planning of life" (p. 604). The two perspectives often are combined, operating simultaneously to generate hostility towards sexual conduct and related social intermingling.

COMMENTARY AND CRITIQUE

Abstinent individuals and groups often comment on the nature of social life and what it means to be human. For example, celibacy (and concomitant communal living) in Shaker communities indicated a complex critique of asymmetrical property relations and related gender inequalities in the surrounding context of emergent capitalism (Collins 2001).

Those who propagate the biomoral value of brahamcarya in northern India also engage in a critique of modernity. They believe that "postcolonial India is enslaved by its 'freedom' to develop and Westernize; enslaved not so much to sex itself—although certainly that—as to the idea that power is a function of potency, and virility the coefficient of modernization" (Alter 1994, p. 57). Modern brahamcarya represents an attempt to diffuse the celibate ideal throughout the body politic, whereas Shaker and other forms of celibacy in the United States in the nineteenth century were practiced more often by people who opted out of the body politic.

COMPLEX CONFIGURATIONS

Celibacy always is enacted as part of a complex configuration of ongoing negotiations regarding socio-cultural values, in which stakes are claimed and positions recalculated as events unfold. Out of those negotiations come patterned gains and losses. The religious celibate forswears sex but gains sacred status and/or economic support while helping his or her community. The Balkan "sworn virgin" relinquishes her female gender to become a man, gaining access to resources for her family and access to traditionally male occupations with higher social status (Gremaux 1994). In these ways sexual abstinence can be managed and even manipulated as a channel for cultural creativity and innovation as well as self-advancement.

Those who are abstinent often attempt to remove themselves from the larger social world, alter that world in an active fashion, or critique it passively. Thus, abstinence entails much more than personal sexual inaction. It can improve or alter one's personal status and perpetuate or change one's society. It also can further one's own and one's family's social, material, symbolic, spiritual, and genetic fortunes.

see also Celibacy; Chastity; Virginity.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Alter, Joseph S. 1994. "Celibacy, Sexuality, and the Transformation of Gender into Nationalism in North India." Journal of Asian Studies 54(1): 45-66.

Alter, Joseph S. 1997. "Seminal Truth: A Modern Science of Male Celibacy in North India." Medical Anthropology Quarterly 11(3): 275-298.

Arnold, Marigene. 1978. "Celibes, Mothers and Church Cockroaches." In Women in Ritual and Symbolic Roles, ed. Judith Hoch Smith and Anita Spring. New York: Plenum.

Collins, Peter. 2001. "Virgins in the Spirit: The Celibacy of Shakers." In Celibacy, Culture, and Society: The Anthropology of Sexual Abstinence, ed. Elisa J. Sobo and Sandra Bell. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

Douglas, Mary. 1966. Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Gremaux, René. 1994. "Woman Becomes Man in the Balkans." In Third Sex, Third Gender: Beyond Sexual Dimorphism in Culture and History, ed. Gilbert Herdt. New York: Zone Books.

Hager, Barbara. 1992. "Get Thee to a Nunnery: Female Religious Claustration in Medieval Europe." Ethnology and Sociobiology 13: 385-407.

Qirko, Hector N. 2001. "The Maintenance and Reinforcement of Celibacy in Institutional Settings." In Celibacy, Culture, and Society: The Anthropology of Sexual Abstinence, ed. Elisa J. Sobo and Sandra Bell. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

Schlegel, Alice. 2001. "The Chaste Adolescent." In Celibacy, Culture, and Society: The Anthropology of Sexual Abstinence, ed. Elisa J. Sobo and Sandra Bell. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

Sobo, Elisa J., and Sandra Bell, eds. 2001. Celibacy, Culture, and Society: The Anthropology of Sexual Abstinence. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

Weber, Max. 1978. Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology, ed. Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich. Berkeley: University of California Press. (Orig. pub. 1914.)

                                                  Elisa J. Sobo

                                                  Sandra Bell