[We take up chastity and its absence here,] since I am still on the way to dealing with conjugial love in particular, and because conjugial love in particular can be known only indistinctly and thus dimly unless its opposite is also seen to some degree. Its opposite is unchasteness, and this is seen to some degree, or some shadow of it, when chastity is described along with its absence. For chastity is simply the removal of unchasteness from that which is chaste. Unchasteness, on the other hand, which is the complete opposite of chastity, is discussed in the second part of this work, where it will be described in its full scope and in its varieties under the title, PLEASURES OF INSANITY RELATING TO LICENTIOUS LOVE. Meanwhile, what chastity is and its absence, and who they apply to, will be made clear according to the following outline:

(1) Chastity and a lack of chastity are terms that apply only to states of marriage and things that have to do with marriage. (2) Chastity is ascribed only to monogamous marriages, or to marriages of one man with one wife. (3) Only a Christian conjugial relationship is chaste. (4) Truly conjugial love is the essence of chastity. (5) All the delights of truly conjugial love, even the end delights, are chaste. (6) Conjugial love is more and more purified and becomes chaste in people who become spiritual from the Lord. (7) Chastity in marriage comes about through total renunciation of licentious relationships in accordance with religion. (8) Chastity cannot be ascribed to little children or boys and girls, nor to adolescents of either sex before they feel a love for the opposite sex stirring in them. (9) Chastity cannot be ascribed to people who are born eunuchs or who have been made eunuchs. (10) Chastity cannot be ascribed to people who do not believe that adultery is an evil against religion, and still less to those who do not believe that adultery is harmful to society. (11) Chastity cannot be ascribed to people who abstain from adulterous relationships only for various external reasons. (12) Chastity cannot be ascribed to people who believe that marriages are unchaste. (13) Chastity cannot be ascribed to people who have renounced marriage by a vow of perpetual celibacy, unless a love for the truly conjugial life is present and remains in them. (14) The state of marriage is preferable to a state of celibacy.

Explanation of these statements now follows.