The idealization of chastity, viewed as one of the most valuable female virtues in Elizabethan and Jacobean England, was a common theme of Renaissance English society and literature. In both Catholic and Protestant teachings, female chastity was viewed as one of the most spiritually rewarding virtues a woman could exhibit^[1]. While religious and societal figures like Virgin Mary and Queen Elizabeth provided forums for large scale idealization of chastity and virginity, characters in Early Modern English literature like Shakespeare's Ophelia, Portia, and Desdemona also provide examples of chastity for women to follow in Elizabethan and Jacobean English society. This cemented the question of female chastity into Renaissance English tradition as chastity became crucial to a woman's expectation of marriage in the capitalist Reformed English society^[2].

Though virginity was not seen as the highest of virtues in Early Modern English Catholic faith, it was "more excellent than marriage, since it has as its subject a superior good"(31)^[2]. While marriage was believed to be "ordered to the multiplication of the human race", virginity was "ordered to a divine good and enjoys spiritual [fertility]"(31)^[2]. In Paul's explication of virginity versus marriage to the Corinthians, he writes, "There is a difference also between a virgin and a wife: the unmarried women careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy in both body and spirit: but she that is married, careth for the things of the world, and how she may please her husband"1 Cor 7:32–34. He explains the spiritual supremacy of virginity to marriage, suggesting an unmarried woman favors the works of God while married women are preoccupied with the cares of the world^[2]. Additionally, Juan Luis Vives writes, "Howe pleasaunt and dere to to every body is a virgin?"(84)^[2], regarding virginity as a state of mental and spiritual perfection which couples bodily purity. Vives goes further to declare women should be both chaste in body and in mind otherwise they blemish their chastity. He emphasizes the Catholic idea that if a wife did not give up her body to her husband's sexual desire, she committed adultery against his will in his work, establishing male marital dominance and making the question of a wife's faithfulness central to the stability of a marriage.^[2]
Both male and female virginity played a role in the Catholic Church. Though women were silenced during sermons, they were expected to be spiritually equal with their male counterparts. This was accomplished through their virginity, as this virtue was viewed as having the highest spiritual value in the life of a woman. The figure of Virgin Mary, who Vives describes as "our lady, the mother of Christe, god and man"(84), also served as a religious example of virginity for women of Renaissance England^[2]. In terms of male virginity, this virtue was valued for priests and men of important religious positions. According to Jankowski, male virginity was valued in priests because by abstaining sexually he would also be preserving his "sacred fire", or sperm, from defiliation^[2].

Changes began to occur regarding the higher value of virginity to marriage due in large part to the religious and economic changes of the period. The end of feudalism and rise of capitalism transformed the English family structure into one which favored the bourgeois over the proletariat. Since most Protestant families came out of the upper class during the Reformation, the involvment of women with family financial matters dwindled with the spread of capitalism in Protestant society^[2]. The value of chastity in Protestant rhetoric stresses the suppression of lust until marriage, "For it is better to marry than to burn with passion" 1 Cor 7:8–9. Stemming from the Christian value of temperance, one of the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit^[5], chastity in marriage began to be viewed as superior to physical virginity in Reformed English Society. Protestant English society defined chastity as virginity before marriage and "a marriage which involves sexual activity and in which the partners are faithful to each other"(85), causing Protestant marriage theory to suggest both husbands and wives be chaste. Due to the increase of male marital dominance brought about by a combination of economic and religious change, female chastity took the forefront of societal concern as opposed to the overwhelming importance of both male and female virginity in Catholic society. The idea women should submit to their husbands as the Church does to Christ increased expectations of chastity on women of Renaissance England as well. Another opposition to Catholic society was the newly found religious autonomy of Protestant men. Not only could they speak to God without priest intervention but they could also independently interpret scripture because of the availability of the Bible in the vernacular^[2]. Due to the attack on priest celibacy, or the state of being unmarried^[6], even married men could become members of the elect. Virginity was no longer as important as chastity in marriage as according to Jankowski, "Wives were expected to obey their husbands in all things, especially in matters of chastity"(80)^[2].

Chastity was viewed as one of the greatest virtues of women in Renaissance England. During the period, to be chaste meant to be "pure from unlawful sexual intercourse;... celibate;... [and] undefiled"^[7]. According to Theodora Jankowski's Pure Resistance, women were taught to be silent in churches in accordance to pre-Reformation Catholic teachings yet were expected to be spiritually equal with men on account of their virginity. As virginity was viewed as more spiritually rewarding than marriage in Catholic teaching, the question of a woman's virginity became central to her spiritual and therefore social reputation^[2]. In the pre-Reformation system of feudalism, broadly defined as a means of "structuring society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour"^[8], it was common for entire families of both the gentry and non-gentry to be involved in the means of financial stability of the family. After the Protestant Reformation, the adoption of capitalism caused the size of nuclear families to decrease due to the inability of the proletariat to financially support large families and the availability of low wage labor for the bourgeois to use instead of family members^[2]. This change effectively vanquished the financial role of women in bourgeois households, leaving women socioeconomically subservient to their husbands. Most early English protestants came out of the bourgeois, so the idea of male marital dominance followed into Protestant English society. Though Protestant marriage theory demands both members be chaste, defined as "a marriage which envolves sexual activity and in which both partners are faithful to each other"(85)^[2], male dominance made it so the only forcibly chaste figure in a marital setting was the woman. Due to this, the responsibility of a Renaissance English wife quickly became centered around outward expression of her chastity and inferiority to her husband. According to a writer identified by the initials W.L., "a vertuous wife [is]...lowly, and nothing in her own eyes"(99)^[2].
The Protestant value of chastity quickly became a staple of Renaissance English culture as it was passed down by men and women alike. While influencial figures of patriarchal society stressed the spiritual and social importance of chastity, Protestant women emphasized the importance of chastity and virginity for marriage through legacies, diaries, and poems. Isabella Whitney famously produced works like A Sweet Nosegay to highlight the importance of sexual purity and faithfulness in both marital stability and a woman's expectation of marriage. Poem 34 of A Sweet Nosegay depicts the emphasis on female seuxal purity as it reads,

She that is an Adulteresse
   of evylles is a sea:
Her wickedness consumes her selfe
   and husband both decay. (poem 34)^[9]

Along with Whitney, others like Elizabeth Jocelin and Dorothy Leigh addressed legacies to their daughters and sons regarding their expectations of chastity. In her legacy, Jocelin (1596-1622) details the type of education she wishes for her daughter: "learning the Bible ... good housewifery, writing, and good workes: other learning a woman needs not"^[2]. According to her Protestant beliefs, nothing was better than overcoming the flesh, a feat accomplished through chastity which serves as "a vertue of the soule ... the Seale of Grace ... [and] the crowne of virginitie"(103)^[2]. As Jocelin claims chastity and modesty are the best things any woman can bring into marriage in M. R.'s legacy (c.1630) addressed to her daughter, Leigh sees chastity as a "compendium of all virtues"(103)^[2] in her legacy to her three sons (1633). She urges all women to embrace chastity as without it, they "are meere beasts and no women"(103)^[2]. Finally, she sees Virgin Mary as a figure of both female virginity and wifehood, suppressing women under religious and societal examples of chastity.

Figures like Virgin Mary and Queen Elizabeth aided the enforcement of female chastity in Renaissance England^[2][10]. While the former served as the beholded religious figure of mother of Christ, Elizabeth I, dubbed the Virgin Queen, never married and became a symbol of female chastity to many in Renaissance England^[10]. The question and idealization of her chastity took the stage of Renaissance art as her pale portrayals represented the sexual purity. Her virtue is also alluded to in Early Modern English literature, as references to Gloriana and Diana Primrose's A Chaine of Pearle. Or, a Memoriall of the peerles Graces, and Heroick Vertues of Queene Elizabeth, of Glorious Memory highlight the Renaissance obsession with the question of her chastity^[2][11].

The question of Ophelia's chastity is central to her character in Shakespeare's Hamlet. Described as young and beautiful, she serves the role of a maiden in the play. She accounts an instance in which Hamlet is apparently in her closet, or private room, raising questions of her sexual purity. She remarks,

My lord, as I was sewing in my closet,
Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbraced;
No hat upon his head; his stockings fouled,
Ungartered, and down-gyvèd to his ankle;
Pale as his shirt; his knees knocking each other;
And with a look so piteous in purport
As if he had been loosèd out of hell
To speak of horrors—he comes before me. (II.i.77-84)^[13]

Pressured by both her father Polonius and brother Laertes to reject any sexual advances made by Hamlet to preserve her value before marriage, her sensuality is monitored and controlled by two dominating male figures in her life^[1]. With her natural instincts conflicting with the familial advice she recieves, Jessica C. Murphy believes Ophelia's madness links directly to her "inability to reconcile conflicting advice about her sexuality, suggesting that, by the turn of the seventeenth century, even Shakespeare was critical of the impossible standards presented to women in contemporary conduct literature" ^[1]. As Ophelia's madness progresses along the play, her songs begin to contain themes of love and intimacy, casuing those around her to question her chastity^[1]. She includes themes of love as she sings,

How should I your true love know
From another one?
By his cockle hat and staff,
And his sandal shoon. (IV.v.22-25)^[13]

Gertrude's sexuality is also important in Shakespeare's Hamlet. Following the murder of her husband, King Hamlet, she marries his brother Claudius very speedily in the eyes of Prince Hamlet. He sees her as unfaithful to her husband following his death due to her swift remarriage. Hamlet's anger towards Gertrude is mainly rooted in his perception of her unfaithfulness to her husband, surrounding her character in the question of chastity^[14]. The Ghost also comments on her sexuality, telling Hamlet,

Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast,
With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts,--
O wicked wit, and gifts that have the power
So to seduce!--won to his shameful lust
The will of my most seeming-virtuous queen. (I.v.42-45)^[13]

Desdemona is another example of a female literary figure centered in the question of chastity. In Shakespeare's Othello, her sexual purity is described as sufficient enough to override the societlal blemishes of Othello's black skin^[15]. Katherine Gillen claims as the play progresses, "[Desdemona's] chastity...becomes integral to Othello's continued status as a Venetian subject, a point Othello makes explicit in his ill-fated proclamation, 'My life upon her faith'(I.iii.295)^[16]"(181)^[15]. Othello is initially confident regarding his relationship with Desdemona, his reputation, and her faith until Iago causes him to doubt Desdmeona's virtue. According to Berry, Othello embodies the Renaissance English fear of cuckoldery as it was viewed as the ultimate usurpation of male sexual dominance over women^[14]. In a later show of affection, Othello gifts Desdemona a handkerchief. Critics like Gillen believe this is a symbol of her sexuality, making it representative of the fidelity which Othello thinks she has lost when the handkerchief comes up in Cassio's possession^[15]. By the end of the tragedy, Othello's fear of sexual humiliation and anxiety regarding Desdemona's faithfulness results in the gruesome deaths of both characters. Due to this, Gillen claims the question of Desdemona's chastity is both central to her portrayal in the play as well as Othello's mental stability^[15].

Jessica's character in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice centers mainly around her chastity and virtue. She appears initially as a friend to the Christian Portia after winding up in her abode despite being a Jew, transcending the barrier of race through her sexual purity^[17]. She escapes with Lorenzo by disguising as his page, or servant, retreating with him and leaving her father Shylock. By the end of the play, the couple confesses their mutual love, acquire Shylock's estate as Portia decrees he must do or otherwise face legal punishment. The couple gets married and by doing so effectively converts Jessica to Christianity. Critics such as Vanessa Rapatz and Susan Oldrieve believe her religious fluidity is due to her chastity and virtue^[18][19]. Her running away with Lorenzo also raises questions of her chastity because the spend a majority of the work secluded together^[18].

In the first scene of Middleton’s The Revenger’s Tragedy, Vindice is on stage holding the skull of his murdered lover^[21]. He recounts her beauty in life, citing her perfection in appearance and sexual purity as well as he never failing attractiveness to men^[21]. He notes the lifeless features of the skull, emphasizing the beauty they brought her in life and constantly referring to the sexual purity she had in life though her beauty could cause a man to sin^[21]. Katherine Gillen remarks his idealization of her virginity is necrophilic, stating “Revenger’s diverges from Shakespeare’s plays, however, … by critiquing the idealisation of virginity as inappropriately nostalgic and even necrophilic”(62)^[15]. While Gillen views the glorification of the skull as a criticism of Renaissance English values through its overt obsurdity, the skull being named Gloriana insinuates it functions opposingly as a literary example of societal expectations for women of the period. The name Gloriana evidently alludes to the idolized Queen Elizabeth I, drawing attention to the question of chastity in Vindice's lover's character^[22].

The Duchess also plays a heavily sexualized role in the play, being linked to the destruction of chastity from the beginning of the play as her son is accused of raping Antonio's wife ^[21]. She becomes furious with the Duke's half-hearted attempts to acquit her son and thus sleeps with his illegitimate son Spurio in a sexual revenge^[21]. Her next appearance also contains sexual undertones as the next time she is witnessed is in bed with her husband, the Duke, by Lussurioso after Vindice decieves him into believing she was in bed with Spurio at the time^[21]. In Act III Scene v, Vindice forces the Duke to watch as she cuckolds him with his illegitimate son and promises to poison him if he interferes with Spurio's pursuit of a relationship with her^[21]. The state of the duchess' chastity is central to her role in the play, as her relation to fornication and hypereroticism presents her as an example of a woman without virtue^[15].