No girls allowed

Tchamast, morose of mood, an avowed ascetic, whose distrust of the female race runs so deep that he will allow only male insects into the precincts of his manse.

(Jack Vance: Rhialto the Marvellous)

The Athonite banning of persons and images female was first decided a thousand years ago. Following various mystic visions of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the bigwigs of the Byzantine Orthodox Church decided that the burgeoning monastic community on the lush 400-square-mile peninsula should be dedicated solely to the Virgin. And to ensure that the Virgin was not outshone by anything else female, it was ruled that all rival females should be banished from the peninsula. From the off, the monks took this ordinance literally. Not only did they banish all the washerwomen and fishwives, they also drove off the female animals: the mares, sows and bitches. Even the hens were shooed away. Eventually, only the female songbirds were allowed, mainly because there was nothing that could be done about them.

(Sean Thomas: How the other half lives. See also The Straight Dope.)

The monks at Mount Athos are also reminiscent of the Chilites Vance invented for The Anome. The Chilites scrupulously avoid the untidy contacts of real women, but venerate an abstract feminine essence they call "Galexis".

"You must start to forge the strongest of all bonds, the holy link to the temple. Galexis, the nervous essence, corresponds to female women as the candy of unmel to tannery sludge; you will learn more of this. Meanwhile, strengthen yourself!"

(Jack Vance: The Anome)

Through the window came a mumble of voices: "...Galexis of a million beatific forms, individual but universal, for all but for each alone, submissive but magnificent in your forward search; we avert our souls from sordid stuffs, the greases and taints, the First Order Palpabilities!"

(ibid.)

Did Vance knew of the "no girls allowed" rule at Mount Athos?