| Title: | Modern chastity belt |
| Original Title: | Ceinture de virginité des modernes |
| Volume and Page: | Vol. 2 (1752), p. 799 |
| Author: | Denis Diderot (biography) |
| Translator: | Dena Goodman [University of Michigan] |
| Original Version (ARTFL): | Link |
| Rights/Permissions: |
This text is protected by copyright and may be linked to without seeking permission. Please see http://quod.lib.umich.edu/d/did/terms.html for information on reproduction. |
| URL: | http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.did2222.0003.134 |
| Citation (MLA): | Diderot, Denis, and Edme-François Mallet. "Modern chastity belt." The Encyclopedia of Diderot & d'Alembert Collaborative Translation Project. Translated by Dena Goodman. Ann Arbor: Michigan Publishing, University of Michigan Library, 2015. Web. [fill in today's date in the form 18 Apr. 2009 and remove square brackets]. <http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.did2222.0003.134>. Trans. of "Ceinture de virginité des modernes," Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, vol. 2. Paris, 1752. |
| Citation (Chicago): | Diderot, Denis, and Edme-François Mallet. "Modern chastity belt." The Encyclopedia of Diderot & d'Alembert Collaborative Translation Project. Translated by Dena Goodman. Ann Arbor: Michigan Publishing, University of Michigan Library, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.did2222.0003.134 (accessed [fill in today's date in the form April 18, 2009 and remove square brackets]). Originally published as "Ceinture de virginité des modernes," Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, 2:799 (Paris, 1752). |
Modern chastity belt. It has nothing in common with that of the ancients. Among the ancients, the husband removed the chastity belt from his wife the first night of his marriage; and among the moderns it is a present that a jealous husband sometimes bestows upon her the next day. This belt is composed of two strips of very flexible iron, arranged in a cross: these strips are covered with velvet. One of the strips goes around the body above the waist; the other passes between the thighs, and the end of it comes back around to meet the two ends of the first strip; the three ends are held together by a padlock, which only the husband knows how to open. See Padlock. The strip which passes between the thighs is pierced in such a way as to assure the husband of the prudence of his wife, without interfering with other natural functions. It is said that this instrument which is so infamous, so injurious to the female sex, was invented in Italy; this is perhaps a slander. What is certain is that Italy is not the only country where it is used.
Christian of the belt . In the year 235 of the hegira of Jesus Christ, Molaraekkel, tenth caliph of the family of the Abassids, [1] ordained that Jews and Christians should wear a large leather belt to indicate their faith, which is still done today throughout the Orient. Since that time the Christians of Asia, and above all those of Syria and Mesopotamia, who are almost all Nestorians or Jacobites, are called Christians of the belt .
Note
1. He is referring to the Caliph Mutawakkil, who ruled in Samarra (Syria) from 847 to 861 CE. This last paragraph was written by Mallet, whereas the first one was written by the editor, Diderot. What connection Diderot is trying to imply between the chastity belt worn by European women and the belt worn to mark Christians and Jews under Islam is left up to the reader.