Bachelor vs Celibate
Bachelor and Celibate are two words that are often confused to mean one and the same person. Strictly speaking there is difference between the two words. Bachelor is an unmarried man. In other words a person who remained unmarried all through his life is called a bachelor.
Interestingly the word ‘bachelor’ has another meaning too. It refers to a man or a woman who has taken the degree of Bachelor of Arts or Science etc. It is important to know that bachelor girl is a term that refers to an independent unmarried young woman. There are two different noun forms related to the word ‘bachelor’. They are bachelorhood and bachelorship.
Bachelorhood is that period of a man’s life in which he remains bachelor. Bachelorship refers to the qualification of a man who remains unmarried. A celibate on the other hand is different from a bachelor in the sense that he abstains from sexual relations and from marriage too.
A man is called a bachelor as long is he remains unmarried but the man need not abstain from sexual relations in his bachelorhood though. On the other hand a celibate remains unmarried and also abstains from sexual relations. This is the main difference between bachelor and celibate.
The major difference between bachelor and celibate only goes to prove that all bachelors are not celibates but on the contrary all celibates are necessarily bachelors. It is generally felt that the abstention of celibate from sexual relations is mostly due to religious reasons.
A celibate is also called a celibate person. Its noun form is celibacy. It is interesting to note that the word ‘celibate’ is derived from the Latin ‘caelibatus’ which means ‘unmarried state’. It is very important to use both the words in the right sense. They are certainly not interchangeable when it comes to their meaning.