Chastity Belt

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Overview

The Chastity Belt is a metal padlocked undergarment which locked around woman’s genitalia to prevent any sexual activity and featured two openings for latrine purposes

Historical information

The Chastity Belt is an item that titillates and offends in equal measure. The story goes that the chastity belt was invented in the Middle Ages to enforce a wife’s fidelity while her knightly husband was away, sometimes for years, fighting battles or on religious crusades to the Holy Lands. In the 18th and 19th centuries the belt was supposedly used to prevent rape and masturbation in adolescents.

The Chastity Belt was a metal padlocked undergarment which locked around woman’s genitalia to prevent any sexual activity and featured two openings for latrine purposes, which were occasionally patterned with hearts and flowers! The idea that women would wear these tight belts on the groin for an extended period of time is medically questionable as prolonged contact of skin against metal would lead to abrasions, wounds and infections within a few days.

Details

Registration number

cwa-org-124-2021.89

Contextual Information

There is no historical evidence in legitimate medieval text that the Chastity Belt existed and academic research indicates that the Chastity Belt is most likely a myth. The British Museum states that it believes the vast majority of examples of chastity belts held in museums were made in the 18th and 19th century as “curiosities for the prurient or as jokes for the tasteless”.

Most of the images of chastity belts, beginning from the 15th C, are cartoons which parody the chastity belt as a joke at the expense of the departing husband. The idea of a lock and key being an effective way to keep your partner loyal was as funny six hundred years ago as it is today!

Primary significance criteria

Artistic or aesthetic significance

Related Objects

Parent records

ROOM 1.25 Bedroom and Nursery

Busselton Historical Society

Organisation Details
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