A brahmana once asked Lord Vishnu: "Which woman is chaste and what are the characteristics of a chaste woman? Kindly teach me in such a way so that I may thoroughly understand it."
Lord Visnu replied: "A chaste woman is she who
- renders adoration to her husband with a hundred times more love than what she has for her son;
- fears him like a king
- and treats him like God embodied.
- Who acts like a maid while attending to domestic chores;
- like a prostitute at the time of cohabitation,
- like a mother at the time of feeding, and
- like a minister at the time of crisis by giving good advice.
"A woman may be taken as Pativrata who
- never disobeys her husband
- either mentally,
- verbally,
- bodily
- or even through gestures
- and takes food only after feeding her husband.
"Such a lady is Pativrata who
- adores her husband on whatever beds he sleeps;
- who never nurtures any sense of jealousy for him;
- nor does she ever behave miserly
- nor is ever displeased irrespective of how her husband treats her - respectfully or otherwise;
- who treats both honor or dishonor as equal.
"The chaste lady who considers any other man, however handsome, as her brother, father or son, is a Pativrata."
--from the Padma Purana