A certain obscurity seems to surround the idea of religious chastity (manifest even in the various names given to it, chastity, perfect continence, purity, virginity), and there is a tendency to envisage it in a negative manner, as chiefly the exclusion of sex and marriage. On the other hand, many recent studies have emphasised the positive richness of the idea and the many elements involved in it. It may therefore not be out of place to try to give a synthetic view of the whole. Basically it is a special kind of temperance called chastity, balanced between lust and insensibility, and supported by the sense of sharne and modesty, and by the attraction of a spiritual beauty. Its specific difference as religious chastity comes from a vow, which belongs to the virtue of religion; while charity, both towards God and the neighbour, is its end.