n affront to God, which she must repudiate by assuming women's clothes again. They had not worried themselves very much about trying to prove that Joan's voices had been delusions or hallucinations (Gies 24). Their own belief in such mystical visions was strong. Instead, they attempted to prove that the source of her voices was demonic rather than divine. She was, they claimed, a witch and a heretic. It was believed that copulation with the devil was "a prerequisite for a witch," and, therefore, it was necessary to disprove her claim of chastity (Lynn 152).
But Joan had not made the choice of chastity in order to escape charges of witchcraft. Her decision had both social and religious aspects. Socially, avowed virginity took a woman out of the traditional order. Such withdrawals were usually practiced by entering a convent. But, in refusing to participate in the chain of "woman = reproducer = object = chattel," any virgin "placed herself out of reach of society's laws governing women" (Lynn 152). In this sense, virginity was a pr
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