Laertes goes on to tell Ophelia that while Hamlet might "love you now," he "is subject to his birth." Hamlet may not, "as unvalued persons do" choose his own mate. Hamlet is subject to the desires of his state, and he will necessarily break her heart. Should Ophelia relinquish her virginity to Hamlet, she would undoubtedly be shamed. A brother's expectation is that his sister is chaste, that she has no worth of her own except in her sex.
Polonius asks Ophelia what her relationship with Hamlet is, whether the young man has made advances to her. She answers that Hamlet has told her he loves her and that she believes him. Polonius calls her a "green girl," accusing her of being too naive to judge Hamlet's sincerity. Ophelia pleads with her father, "I do not know, my lord, what I should think." Her father instructs her not to think, to remain a virgin lest she shame her father.
Polonius has just told his son, "To thine own self be true." Yet he has negated any possibility that Ophelia might own her own self, that she might have a will apart from her men. The father offers no such choices to his daughter.
Women of Ophelia's time were trained to be chattel to their men. They were taught needlecraft, righteousness of character, servitude. But they were not encouraged to write or read or reason. The assumption that both Laertes and Polonius make is that Ophelia is a virgin, that she is theirs to sell to a husband for the bride wealth she can garner.
