Page:The Way of a Virgin.djvu/36

Rh Originating in the woollen band worn by the Spartan virgin —a garment removed for the first time by the husband on the wedding night—these Girdles of Chastity, with their padlocks and keys, were undoubtedly in use in the fourteenth or fifteenth century, and in use for an unmistakable purpose. "The first to employ this apparatus," says Dr. Jacobus X—— (Ethnology of the Sixth Sense: Charles Carrington: Paris, 1899), "was Francis of Tarrara, Provost of Padua in the fourteenth century. It was a belt having a central piece made of ivory, with a barbed narrow slit down the middle, which was passed between the legs and fixed there by lock and key. A specimen of this safety apparatus is to be seen actually at the Musee de Cluny in Paris."

Dr. Caufeynon, the great authority on the subject, believes, however, that these girdles only date from the Renaissance. In his remarkable