Celibacy

Religious celibacy is most clear in systems arising from dualistic tradition, which regard physical matter as the source of evil and self-realization as conditional on the spiritual, with the extinction of impulses arising from the physical and the environment. Some Buddhist orders and also priests and medicine men of indigenous American peoples practised strict celibacy; and the eightfold path of yoga as set down by Patanjali also demands restraint from any sexual behaviour. Celibacy, particularly female celibacy or [virginity]

, before marriage is considered a virtue in most traditions. Temporary celibacy as a form of corporal purification has also been and is used in many traditions, although it is mainly in the the Christian tradition that totally abstaining from marriage is considered commendable. The Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches exclude ordained clerics from marriage; and the Roman Catholic Church only allows ordination of married men under special conditions. Such tradition considers the freely undertaken abstinence from marriage for the purpose of practising chastity and of dedicating one's life wholly to the service of God to be an efficacious incentive to charitable behaviour to all mankind.