Virtue.....such a complex and yet simple concept.

I was brought up a Catholic with all the pomp and circumstance that it entails. As a teen I strayed and joined the evangelicals. The services were not as boring and the music much cooler. Eventually I stopped attending church. I found it preachy and dogmatic and personally suffocating. But throughout all this transformation in my spiritual life . One constant remained, my virtue. I am a woman of morals. When I married my vows meant so very much. I believed the till death do us part and in sickness and in health lines. We were poor, but we were in love. To make a long story short I was married for 17 years and 10 of those years I shared my life with an alcoholic. Verbally and emotionally abusive. I hung in there and people ask me why I stayed so long. I pondered this question and in truth it was my vows. My virtue as a good woman who had entered into the bonds of matrimony would not allow me to leave. But even virtue has it's limits. Mine was my children's suffering. My mistake was not their responsibility nor their cross to bear.

After my divorce I entered a world I no longer knew. I was an alien from outer space , or so I was made to feel. Women pursuing men,as men had pursued women in the past. Women openly seeking sexual liaisons as if it was an everyday thing. I do not stand in judgment of anyone, but I ask the same in return. I have been condemned, laughed at and insulted because I do not believe that a woman's virtue is negotiable.
A man will always be a man in the eyes of society , but a woman is her virtue.

Am I wrong? Virtue is not virginity . Virtue is decency, respect for oneself and placing a value on our womanhood. I was once told I needed to get with the program because I do not participate in casual encounters. Now my answer is this. why on earth would I possibly participate in a program that will allow me to lower my self worth? A program that will allow men to treat me as if I were a piece of meat. Why in heavens name would I abandon a program that has served me well for 48 years of life?

As I said virginity is not the issue when one speaks of virtue in modern society. That is a realistic fact of life. Virtue is however the pride one has in ones own morality. The value one places on ones ability to be and remain a lady at all times. Ones choice to enter into intimacy in a relationship rather than a string of encounters. In the absence of virginity what we have to offer is our virtue to the person we choose to be our love.

Old fashioned ? Perhaps, but quite honestly and very sincerely the last vestige of virtue, in my humble opinion.

Learn more about this author, Nilda Cortes.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

---

Add your voice

Know something about Women and virtue?
We want to hear your view. Write now!