Alone of All Her Sex: The Myth and the Cult of the Virgin Mary - Marina Warner
Alone of All Her Sex: The Myth and the Cult of the Virgin Mary - Marina Warner
Non-Fiction
Pages: 480
The role of the Virgin Mary within the Catholic faith is a curious one. In many respects she is treated as almost as Christ's equal, the 'Mother of God', almost a goddess in her own right, worshipped, prayed to, honoured, venerated. And yet the scriptural evidence to support this position is almost non-existent. Almost all aspects of, as the title goes, the myth and cult of the Virgin Mary are non-Biblical accretions, Church traditions, that have been accumulating over two thousand years of history. Indeed, the bodily 'Assumption' of the Virgin Mary into heaven was only decreed as dogma in 1950!
This book is effectively the story of those accretions, how bit by bit, layer by layer, the position of the Virgin Mary within the Church has been established and solidified. Along the way, Marina Warner looks at nigh on two thousand years of art, poetry, sculpture, architecture, devotions, traditions, visions, miracles, all of which have shaped and have been shaped by the perception of Mary in relation to the predominant culture of the time. Images of the Virgin have risen and fallen in direct correlation to cultural and societal mores - at times she was depicted as regal and queenly, other times meek and humble. Sometimes she has been very human, other times mighty and goddess-like. Sometimes she has bowed her head, and sometimes she is seen smiting Satan and other enemies. In many ways, the Virgin has been depicted in precisely the way a culture or society needs her to be - and the very lack of any scriptural dogma has been at the very root of this.
What I found most fascinating in this book was Warner's exploration of how the very act of elevating a human woman almost to the position of a goddess, which you might assume would indicate a respect and veneration for women, has actually served to degrade and oppress the rest of womankind. In making Mary so perfect, so otherworldly, so divine and unstained and untainted, the Church has made her an icon that no woman can ever live up to, has created standards so unattainable that every woman is doomed to failure in comparison. The Virgin Mary is the ideal of womanhood, that no woman can or will ever emulate. And in celebrating Mary as a wife and mother above all else, the Church has solidified this as the central purpose of women's lives.
I don't know how Catholics would respond to this book. I hear it was controversial when first published. After all, if you believe in the Catholic dogmas and tenets of faith, then I don't really see how religious truth can change, adapt or alter over the centuries - and yet Warner quite clearly demonstrates how it has, at least in relation to the Virgin Mary. Personally, coming it from an agnostic position, I'm far more interested in religion from an anthropological standpoint, so this book is right up my alley. When you believe religion is a construct created to satisfy some deep-seated unconscious need in the human psyche for order, stability and a sense of righteous justice in the universe, then it's no stretch at all to believe that we adapt our religious beliefs to suit a given need at any given time. But if it's, forgive the pun, gospel truth, then what is must always have been. And yet...