Customer Reviews

A History of Celibacy: From Athena to Elizabeth I, Leonardo da Vinci, Florence Nightingale, Gandhi, and Cher

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Despite getting bogged down in various minutae in regards to different religious sects, this book is an entertaining and informative read. The author adroitly links the cultural mores of societies across the earth, and analyzes the reasons for celibacy or eternal virginity among different religions and cultures. She also, interestingly enough, emphasizes the practical nature of celibacy, and the role it plays in today's sex-driven culture. I recommend this book to anyone interested in a bit of odd cultural history or someone just interested in the rise and fall of celibacy.

Well researched and well written, this is a book I would have liked to have written myself -- so I read it with great pleasure. A sensitive but searching investigation into what can be a joyful sexual choice or a bitter deprivation. Read this. It's good. It's not just another "self help" blather. It's a real book.

A history of celibacy is a deeply compelling book that offeres a plathora of cultural views on celibacy. From china to native americans, ancient greeks to today, Elizabeth Abbott introduces the reader to a world populated by eunuchs, transvestite nuns, tormented ascetics, empowered virgins and AIDS-weary homosexuals. Abbott's wit and wry sense of humor makes this scholarly research a joy to read. I feel more knowledgble of both my own and other cultures view on sex, the close relationship between religion and sex, and how centuries of sexual principles affects many of todays issues concerning homosexulality, teenage pregnancy, pedophile priests, etc...
A must read for the curious.

It's hard to imagine two words that could do more to kill a book's sales than "history" and "celibacy" ("algebra" and "asphyxia," perhaps). Nevertheless, A History of Celibacy has proven a huge best-seller in Canada (if that counts), giving South Park fans one more reason to hoot in derision at their northern neighbors.

Toronto historian Elizabeth Abbott traces religious celibacy in exhaustive detail from Athena and the vestal virgins of pagan Rome to the Catholic obsession with virginity and the role of self-denial in the Buddhist and Hindu faiths. If the reader can get past Abbott's sociology-textbook prose in these first 200 pages, the book picks up considerably in the second half as she turns her attention to celibacy in the secular world. Abbott pokes fun at the Male Purity Movement of the 19th century and the scientifically unproven link between abstinence and improved athletic performance, but she appears completely sympathetic with female celibacy to transcend traditional gender roles (the section on Elizabeth I is particularly poignant).

Under Abbott's double standard, women in secular society give up sex for career or country (Joan of Arc, Florence Nightingale, Rachel Carson), whereas men abstain because they are repressed homosexuals, incurable pedophiles or superstitious jocks (Leonardo da Vinci, Lewis Carroll, Muhammad Ali). Equally discomfiting is Abbott's account of her own conversion to celibacy: "Much as I once reveled in sexual indulgence...I am immensely relieved that someone else's domestic demands no longer dominate my daily agenda." Yeah, love stinks.

It's a bit hard to take her discussion of the Shakers seriously considering she does not consult the scholarly work of Louis J. Kern. His penetrating insights would have illuminated this portion of her book further. Otherwise, this book does give the reader a sense of why one would become celibate in a certain place and at a certain time.

_A History of Celibacy_ by Elizabeth Abbott (no irony here, as an Abbott is in charge of a monastery) is a huge overview of what hasn't been going on in human history. In keeping with the collective schizophrenia of our times, the cover has a picture of a curvaceous womans naked back rather than a more appropriate image such as the Virgin Mary or St. Augustine.

Celibacy, defined by Abbott for the sake of her study, is abstinence from sexual activity. The technical meaning of celibacy is simply not being married, although the word usually designates "not engaging in sex." The foremost proponent of celibacy is of course religion, in particular Catholic and Orthodox Christianity, although celibate traditions existed in pagan Mesopotamia, Greece and Rome as well. The Gospels never mention Jesus as being intimate with a woman and the early Church practiced a discipline of celibacy, following the example of St. Paul. Other saints followed in the tradition including St. Anthony the Great (Father of Monks), St. Benedict, St. Jerome and of course, the sexual revolutionist's archenemy, St. Augustine. The monks of the Christian East were more radically ascetic, "anti-Church" and individualistic than their communal Western counterparts. Eastern religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism had many sects and movements that practiced celibacy for one reason or another as a mystical, ascetic practice. The most otherworldly group, the Jains, believe that celibacy is absolutely to achieve "nirvana" or "moksha." Conversely, Judaism and Islam do not have celibate traditions. Later Christianity is examined, where the Roman Catholic Church made celibacy a requirement for its entire clergy. Cults arose in the United States, such as the Shakers and Father Divine's group, which preached unorthodox versions of Christianity and required celibacy of their communal members.

Isaac Newton, Leonardo da Vinci and many other secular figures practiced celibacy in their lives for a variety of reasons. The book describes some unsavory forms of celibacy have been imposed, like that of castrati, prisoners and girls forced to join convents in the Middle Ages. Others are pathological like sufferers of eating disorders. Oddly enough, medical myths of semen conservation that have nothing to do with religious beliefs or social factors have promoted celibacy as well. This was behind some of the Greek stoic philosophers and the anti-masturbation scare and general prudery of the Victorian era. Abbott herself promotes celibacy today as New Age self-esteem measures and to prevent the spread of STDs like AIDS.

_A History of Celibacy_ represents a familiar feminist anti-Christian bias. If men practice celibacy it is either because of repressed homosexuality, fear of women or psychological hang-ups. Female celibates (unless they are forced into it unwillingly by "the Patriarchy") do so because it is liberating them from male dominance. Radical feminists promote the "gay-rights" agenda but suspiciously do not like traditional monasticism, although both amount to "biological suicide" in worldly terms and leave the sexual use of women behind. The difference is that homosexuality is worldly, but monasticism is not. It seems that feminists would rather have men imitating the stereotypically worst aspects of women. They feel threatened by the otherworldly male ascetics who transcend the world and cannot be manipulated by the desires of the flesh, which is the only fuel behind the feminist program. Abbott's non-mystical celibacy is one of social forbearance, not rocking the boat by spreading STDs, ruining self-esteem, and causing unwanted pregnancies. It is also for New Age gurus and feminists who basically want to tear down Western civilization at the end of the day as well. However, she does have a point when criticizing the current status of the priesthood in the Roman Catholic Church. The early Church did have married priests (and even some Bishops), as does the Orthodox Church today. The Catholic Church's clerical celibacy requirement is in fact a break from earlier Christian tradition.