30. The right question plainly is, not whether a virgin every way disobedient is to be compared to an obedient married woman, but a less obedient to a more obedient: forasmuch as that also of marriage is chastity, and therefore a good, but less than virginal. Therefore if the one, by so much less in the good of obedience, as she is greater in the good of chastity, be compared with the other, which of them is to be preferred that person judges, who in the first place comparing chastity itself and obedience, sees that obedience is in a certain way the mother of all virtues. And therefore, for this reason, there may be obedience without virginity, because virginity is of counsel, not of precept. But I call that obedience, whereby precepts are complied with. And, therefore, there may be obedience to precepts without virginity, but not without chastity. For it pertains unto chastity, not to commit fornication, not to commit adultery, to be defiled by no unlawful intercourse: and whoso observe not these, do contrary to the precepts of God, and on this account are banished from the virtue of obedience. But there may be virginity without obedience, on this account, because it is possible for a woman, having received the counsel of virginity, and having guarded virginity, to slight precepts: even as we have known many sacred virgins, talkative, curious, drunken, litigious, covetous, proud: all which are contrary to precepts, and slay one, even as Eve herself, by the crime of disobedience. Wherefore not only is the obedient to be preferred to the disobedient, but a more obedient married woman to a less obedient virgin.

30. Recte plane quaeritur, non utrum omnimodis inobediens virgo conjugatae obedienti, sed minus obediens obedientiori comparanda sit; quia et illa nuptialis castitas est, et ideo bonum est, sed minor quam virginalis. Tanto ergo minor in bono obedientiae, quanto major in bono castitatis, si altera alteri comparetur, quae praeponenda sit judicat, qui primo ipsam castitatem et obedientiam comparans, videt omnium virtutum quodam modo matrem esse obedientiam. Ac per hoc ideo potest esse obedientia sine virginitate, quia virginitas ex consilio est, non ex praecepto. Obedientiam vero illam dico, qua praeceptis obtemperatur. Ideoque obedientia praeceptorum sine virginitate quidem potest, sed sine castitate esse non potest. Ad castitatem namque pertinet non fornicari, non moechari, nullo illicito concubitu maculari: quae qui non observant, contra praecepta Dei faciunt, et ob hoc extorres sunt a virtute obedientiae. Virginitas autem propterea potest esse sine obedientia, quia potest femina consilio virginitatis accepto, et custodita virginitate, praecepta contemnere: sicut multas sacras virgines novimus verbosas, curiosas, ebriosas, litigiosas, avaras, superbas; quae omnia contra praecepta sunt, et sicut ipsam Evam inobedientiae crimine occidunt. Quapropter non solum obediens inobedienti, sed obedientior conjugata minus obedienti virgini praeponenda est.