Encyclopedia > Hymen

  Article Content

Hymen

  • An alternate name for the Greek god Hymenaios
  • A vaginal membrane present in human females, which completely or partially occludes the vaginal opening. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "membrane". Because sexual activity would usually puncture this membrane, its presence has been considered a guarantor of virginity in societies that place a high value on female chastity before marriage. Nonetheless, the hymen is often lost during childhood in the course of normal physical activities.



All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

 
  Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!
 
 
  
  Featured Article
Christiania

... of Copenhagen. This is a disambiguation page; that is, one that just points to other pages that might otherwise have the same name. If you followed a link here, you ...

 
 
 
This page was created in 24.5 ms