Some adulterers have a longing for deflowering virgins, and hence also girls of the age of innocence. They may be enticed into this either by being persuaded by a procuress, or by having presents given to them by men, or by promises of marriage. After deflowering them, these men abandon them and go looking for girls, one after the other. Moreover, they are not satisfied with what is past, but by what is always new; and this lust grows until it becomes the chief of their fleshly pleasures. They add to this the crime of luring by various tricks virgins, who are about to be married or have just been married, to offer them the first-fruits of marriage, a filthy befouling of marriage. I have even been told that, when the sexual drive has gone and their potency has failed, they boast about the number of virginities they have taken, like Jason boasting of so many golden fleeces.

[2] This crime, which is corruption, being started in the vigour of youth and then established by boasting about it, remains rooted in them, so that it lasts after death. The nature of this crime is evident from what was said above, that virginity is the crown of chastity, the pledge of future conjugial love, and that the virgin who surrenders this to a man surrenders her soul and life to him. The friendship and mutual trust of married couples is also based on this. Also, a woman who loses her virginity to such a man, once this doorway to conjugial love is forced open, loses her modesty and becomes promiscuous, for which the despoiler is also to blame.

[3] If the despoilers themselves, after achieving these acts of wantonness and profanations of chastity, turn their attention to marriage, they have nothing else in mind but the virginity of the woman who is to be their wife. Once they have taken it, they loathe the marriage bed and nuptial chamber, in fact they loathe the whole female sex apart from young girls. Since such men violate marriage and look down on the female sex, being thus spiritual robbers, it is obvious that they are pursued by Divine nemesis.