The limited value of virginity: “But even now worth this, and now worth nothing?”

Beginning with Salarino’s extended metaphor in Act One, Scene One, describing one of Antonio’s ships run a-ground as a violated woman, female worth in Merchant of Venice is connected to chastity.

After “dangerous” rocks pierce Salrino’s imaginary ship, and cause precious silks and spices to spill out her hull and be lost upon the waves, Salarino muses on how quickly it was that the ship was rendered worthless by rocks “touching but my gentle vessel’s side”. It was “even now worth this, and now worth nothing” (I.i.34-5). The value of the ship did not lie in innate quality the ship possessed; instead it lay explicitly in what the ship carried. This worth has little protection, and is easily destroyed.

Female virginity is a similarly perilous concept. It easy to “take” a virginity, to render the seal of “virgin” worthless. Virginity is hard to quantify: when does one cross the line from virgin to not-virgin? Is it when a “dangerous rock” touches your side, or is it in the act of penetration? How can you tell a virgin from a non-virgin? The Oxford English Dictionary defines virginity as “The condition of being or remaining in a state of chastity; abstinence from or avoidance of all sexual relations; bodily chastity, as a virtue of great commendation, or as conferring especial merit or sanctity; the mode of life characterized by this, esp. as adopted from religious motives” (OED 1). Virginity is “a virtue of great commendation”, but it is a negative trait: it can exist solely in absence. Virginity is abstention from sex. It consists of refusing sex, of saying no, of not giving in.

In traditional Christianity, men and women are supposed to be virgins until marriage, and lose their virginity on their wedding night. In order for a girl to be considered “marriage-material” in Shakespeare’s time, the assumption is that she will be a virgin up until her wedding night—for men the standard is not necessarily as enforced. Female virginity is important, we are told, because it is the only way to ensure proper bloodlines. If a woman has not had sex before marriage, if her hymen is clearly broken by her new husband then he will know that any child brought about by the union will be specifically his. However, all the worth that is imbued in the concept of “virginity” immediately loses value upon marriage. Queen Elizabeth flaunted her status as virgin, and knew that it, along with what power she held as sole monarch would be lost upon marriage. After marriage, women should not be virgins, they should bear children and become mothers. The virginity that was “even now worth this” is “even now worth nothing”. This is what we picture when we picture a traditional, Christian marriage, like the ones portrayed in the play. Virginity is something that we expect of the female characters in Merchant of Venice before they marry.

Though the word “virgin” only occurs three times in the play, twice as an adjective and once to describe Morrocan women (II.i.10), the concept of female sexual purity runs throughout the play. The virginity, or “chastity”, or “purity” of the women in the play is policed by their fathers. Portia’s father is dead, but has set up his will so that she “may neither choose who I would, nor refuse who I dislike, so is the will of a living daughter curbed by the will of a dead father” (I.ii.22-4). Jessica’s father commands her to lock herself up in the house while he is gone, and not do so much as look outside upon the Christian revelry occurring: which he views as full of possible threat (II.v.30-5). The play sets up a situation where the women are strictly under patriarchal control, with their bodies policed and their purity ensured.

However, by the end of the play this value system has been up-ended. Portia has married who she wanted to, dressed up as a man, and rescued her husband and his friend from a perilous situation. Jessica has run away from her father, embraced the Christianity and revelry he despised, and married a man he would never have approved of. Portia even jokes at the end of the play about how, since Bassanio has broken his promise to keep the ring she gave him safe (ring also serving as a slang term for female genitalia) she will not deny the new owner of the ring “anything I have, / No, not my body, nor my husband’s bed” (V.i.227-8). Of course, Portia has the ring herself, and her threat to cuckold Bassanio can be taken humorously, but the undertone clearly seems to be that Portia will not hold herself to a standard of behavior that Bassanio will not.

The threat of destruction of female sexual purity that was present in Salarino’s metaphor about the ship, Portia’s father’s desire to control his daughter’s husband, and Shylock’s desire to keep Jessica locked in the house is made explicit here, at the point where the value of virginity should have lost all meaning. Instead of a Christian marriage solidifying a view of “pure” sexual relations, and leading to a happy ending the threat of female infidelity is made explicit. The last line of the play is not a happy one, instead it is a promise from Gratiano that “While I live, I’ll fear no other thing / So sore as keeping safe Nerrisa’s ring” (V.i.306-7). Though these women have lost the “worth” bestowed on them by virginity, they retain power over their husbands via the threat of sexual relations with other men, but the existence of that threat means that in many ways the women have just traded in patriarchal fathers concerned about their daughters’ sexual purity for patriarchal husbands concerned about their wives’ sexual purity. The power that these women have in sexuality is also a force which constrains them.

“Virginity.” Oxford English Dictionary Online. Oxford University Press: 2015. Web. http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/223750#eid15645345.

Shakespeare, William. The Merchant of Venice. Ed. John Drakakis. London:Arden,  2010. Print.