Whys and Wherefores of Premarital Chastity

This autumn semester saw the compulsory addition of the Education in the Three Sheng—shengming (life) shenghuo (living) and shengcun (survival)—to the curriculum of students at universities and high and middle schools in Yunnan Province. Education on Life, Love and the Facts about Sex, as it might also be translated, includes the concept of premarital chastity. About 11 other provinces have included the Education in the Three Sheng Education as compiled by Yunnan Province in their school and university curricula.
Yunnan is not the first province to advocate premarital chastity. A training course specializing in the concept that Zhejiang University set up early in 2009 provoked lively media comment, but few college students signed up for it.
For Premarital Chastity
Schools Responsible
Taking into account the threat that sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) pose to public health, it is reasonable to expect schools to take responsibility for educating the youth in appropriate sexual behavior. Instilling the principle of premarital chastity protects the youth and also promotes moral rectitude.
Healthy Growth
The concept of chastity relates to the feudal moral code wherein women remained virgins until married and were unerringly faithful to their husbands, even as widows. But the course formulated in Yunnan Province goes beyond this principle in being based on the belief that premarital chastity promotes healthy growth.
Staid is Safe
Sex education should imbue moral schooling. Growing teenage pregnancies and abortions in recent years imply a need for greater emphasis within sex education on sexual morality. Premarital chastity is the only sure way of curbing unwanted pregnancies. More important, the youth should be made aware that sexual activity at their age goes against age-old moral conventions. Schools, as educators, are responsible for impressing this fact upon young adults.
Education that advocates premarital chastity and discourages puppy love, because of the inevitable sexual exploration it entails, might seem staid and conventional. But from a sex education standpoint, it is better to be conventional than avant-garde. Attitudes towards sex and sexual behavior might be changing, but sexual morality remains a staple of Chinese society.
Against Premarital Chastity
Unrealistic
Premarital chastity is an outmoded concept. These days the pressures of life, particularly economic constraints, make late marriage inevitable. Prospective young wives generally expect to move into their own house when they marry, but these days property prices in urban areas are exorbitant. Scraping up the deposit on a mortgage alone can take years of hard work and frugal living. Most couples are consequently approaching 30, and are sometimes in their mid-30s, when they tie the knot. In these circumstances, premarital chastity is both unreasonable and unrealistic.
Respect for Humanity
Education that does not give priority to humanity by acknowledging human needs cannot be taken seriously as such. For example, panic over AIDS in the early 1980s resulted in many US schools re-branding sex education as abstinence education. Premarital sex was thus forbidden. In the wake of this censure, however, there was a surge in teenage pregnancies.
Virginity Irrelevant
Over-emphasis on premarital chastity, or virginity, can also have the undesirable effect of making those that have resisted temptation throw caution to the winds once they enter matrimony. From the standpoint of social stability, extra-marital affairs are far more of a threat than pre-marital sexual explorations.
Chastity, therefore, is not necessarily the solution to immoral behavior. That love is a main motivator of sex is also often ignored in the debate, which too often focuses on unwanted pregnancies, STDs and promiscuity. As experts point out, the love between a man and a woman is the purest of emotions and sex is its affirmation. This spiritual and physical union, whether it occurs before or before marriage, merits tolerance and understanding, rather than blame and censure.
Premarital chastity is not an issue in many western countries. Sweden, for example, is well known for its openness on sexual matters, having been the first country to include sex education in school curricula. The focus, however, is on scientific physical guidance and sexual ethics, rather making judgments on what is right or wrong behavior, for example as regards gay sex. Once young people understand the biological facts about fertility and sexual fulfillment they can make their own choices. Some might still believe, for example for religious reasons, that it is best to wait until after marriage to have sex, but either way it is for them to decide.
Public Opinion
Sex education that advocates premarital chastity should take into consideration that young adults are influenced by both adult behavior and what they observe in their environment. Social circumstances are a main factor in the argument.
Adults are hence responsible for setting a good example to their offspring. This they can do by maintaining a loving marital relationship and by not indulging in extramarital affairs.
The need to set a good example extends to society in general and the media in particular. Appropriate attitudes towards sex and sexual behavior should be made clear. TV programs, for example, should not portray casual sex as a social norm or as universally acceptable. Under a more overtly ethical social background, education in premarital chastity might be observed in practice as well as in theory.