Lisabeth During begins her study with two questions: “Who cares about chastity? And what has it meant and to whom?” (1). She explains that she took her inspiration from a comment by Virginia Woolf that “the value men set upon women's chastity and the effect upon their education . . . might prove an interesting book” (1). In regard to During's book, interesting is an understatement. Fascinating, at times dizzying, the study spans Greco-Roman antiquity to twenty-first-century teenage girls who pledge to remain virgins until they are married. During draws her examples from mythology and legend, literature and literary criticism, religious texts, music, philosophy, psychoanalysis, and contemporary society. Her work is equally informed by recent feminist and anthropological studies of antiquity, early Christianity, and the Middle Ages.

During asserts that just as there is a marriage plot, there is a chastity plot. She considers how the two intersect, suggesting that the chastity plot may be read as a complication regarding passion/action and pleasure/pain. The ascetic ideal inherent in chastity suppresses those feelings and inhibits their expression. Perhaps surprisingly, the chastity plot she considers the major subcategory is the eunuch's plot. The maiden's plot is, in her estimation, a lesser category, albeit the narrative with which we are most familiar—the pure, modest virgin, suitable for marrying. During observes that maidens and their love stories are more popular than the stories of saints, but the latter merit a deeper analysis to which I will return.

Chastity does not figure prominently in antiquity, and certainly not for men. Nonetheless, During analyzes Euripides's Phaedra in terms of Hippolytus's devotion to the virgin goddess Artemis. During asserts that Hippolytus's violent death is a condemnation of his extreme asceticism while Phaedra herself exemplifies the concept of sophrosyne, self-control. In her analysis of women who refuse marriage (chapter 3), During juxtaposes Turandot, the forty-ninth daughter of Danaus in Aeschylus's play, and Tracy Lord in The Philadelphia Story and finds that there is truly no happy ending if women maintain their refusal of marriage—or, to achieve a happy ending, women must renounce their own desires.

As During moves into considering early Christianity and the church fathers—for example, Jerome or Tertullian, among others—she reminds the reader that the existence of marriage could be viewed as a shame but one with an undeniable utility: the continuation of the species. Marital sex is permissible; uncontrolled lust is not. In chapters 4 and 5 she focuses on how advocacy of renunciation of the flesh was unique to Christianity. The desire to achieve a state of angelism fueled this advocacy. Indeed, During maintains—and rightfully so—that what may be viewed as the cult of chastity is a Christian invention. She posits that sexual renunciation and the mystery of chastity is Christianity's most radical contribution to the chastity plot. Not only could it signify a possible end to the human race, but it also disrupts the division between men and women when childbearing is no longer a part of the equation.

During recognizes that the Reformation (chapter 6) added another level or complication, particularly when considering the reign of Elizabeth I. Marriage has no shame among Protestants. On the contrary, it is the ideal. Continence, which always lurks behind such arrangements, is facilitated by the short period of engagement in Protestant marriage, no longer than six weeks. Elizabeth I was able to break with these norms through her unique status. However, there is no assurance that such models can be emulated. During tackles Richardson's novels Clarissa and Pamela (chapter 7) to expose the contradictions inherent in bourgeois society. Virginity may be a marketable asset, but the goal of marriage leaves no agency to the bride. In her final chapter, During argues that the chastity plot, after Clarissa's rape and death, was effectively destroyed. While one may argue that an eighteenth-century English novel could not have such far-reaching effects, her point is well taken in that we may need to reevaluate how we look at these and other texts. Or, as During suggests, we may need new plots. She suggests paths to follow and, as scholars attempting to understand gender and sexuality, we should do so.