ABSTRACT
Both the Greek and the Christian virgins see suicide as an appropriate response to a threat to their social status. Although the Christian virgin feared losing her virginity and not dying a virgin, the juxtaposition with the suicidal girls of Peri Parthenion highlights the larger pattern of disrupted female transition, the anxiety of getting stuck between categories, of failing to integrate fully into society. For the Christian virgins, bridal imagery is both a strategy for relief and the impetus for that strategy. Initially the marriageable virgin’s choice to remain a lifelong virgin seems to alienate her from her society and its social institutions. Having rejected marriage and childbirth, the female virgin is a social anomaly. Her lack of place means a dangerous lack of authority over her. In becoming a bride of Christ, her obedience and sexual loyalty to Christ was made equal to that of a bride to her betrothed.
