With property and titles to pass on, males needed to be certain of their heirs and thus desired to marry a woman who had never had sex to ensure she was not pregnant with another man's child. The Broken Jug. With the creation of birth control, virginity is slowly losing importance in our society. Perhaps it's because of the female connotation to the word. I, for one, wish I was a virgin.
Innocence is bliss.
But like everything else I get no answers. At least I now know the historical context to my obsession.