The Feminine Divine

Prehistoric artifacts depicting female figures from 30,000 - 5,000 BCE have been discovered in an area stretching from France to Siberia and as far south as Greece. These naked female objects have exaggerated breasts and hips, emphasizing their fertility and sexuality.

Goddess Theory of Marija Gimbutas

According to the theory's primary advocate Marija Gimbutas, the worship of the Goddess of Life, Death, and Regeneration was a universal religion in Europe for some 30,000 years. Primitive societies "were Goddess-worshiping, female-centered, in harmony with their environments" (Leonard and McClure 104)

Key Terms

• Matrilineal - related by tracing common descent exclusively through females from a founding female ancestor.

• Matrifocal - Literally means focused on women. A residential arrangement in which a woman lives with and her children and sometimes her daughter's children, without coresident husbands or other adult men.

• Matriarchy - a social system ruled by mothers or women.

Critics of Gimbutas' Goddess Theory

While Gimbutas argued that these fertility images were evidence of a prehistoric female led culture eventually overrun by a male dominated warrior culture, critics of her view disagree. In addition to the female fertility objects found, male and transgendered objects have also been found. The critics conclude that "Females in the Upper Paleolithic were the objects . . . of social control, male desire; . . . their place and functions in Paleolithic society were biologically determined." quoted in Conkety and Tringham. "Archeology and the Goddess: Exploring the Contours of Feminist Archeology." Feminisms in the Academy (Leonard and McClure 109).

Archetypes as Exemplars

While the male archetypes are typically defined according to specific male social roles, the traditional way of viewing the female archetypes has been defined by her physicality as a fertility figure, the nymph, the mother, the old woman. Joseph Campbell has suggested that heroes can be viewed as "exemplars," as models for behavior. Some modern psychologists have suggested schemes for identifying certain goddesses as exemplars of specific feminine traits. Leonard & McClure include the approaches of Woolger and Woolger and Jean Shinoda Bolen, which look at a number of the Greek goddesses as exemplars of female social roles.

The Goddess Within - Woolger and Woolger

Woolger and Woolger identify three broad social characteristics of women which they define as roles of independence, power, and love. For each category, Woolger and Woolger define an extraverted and intraverted goddess. However, this identification of extraverted versus intraverted breaks down in the third role of love. Woolger and Woolger identify Athena and Artemis as goddesses of Independence, Hera and Persephone as goddesses of Power, and Demeter and Aphrodite as goddesses of Love (Leonard and McClure 110-112).

The Goddess Within - Independence

The Goddess Within - Power

The Goddess Within - Love

Everywoman's Goddess - Jean Shinoda Bolen

Jean Shinoda Bolen examines women in terms of their social/familial roles and identifies three broad groups: Virgin goddesses, Vulnerable goddesses, and the Transformative goddess. She identifies three Virgin goddesses - Artemis, Athena, and Hestia; three Vulnerable goddesses - Hera, Demeter, and Persephone; and the Transformative goddess - Aphrodite (Leonard and McClure 112-113).

Everywoman's Goddess: The Virgin Goddesses

Everywoman's Goddess: The Vulnerable Goddesses

Everywoman's Goddess: The Transformative Goddess

The Triple Goddess

The traditional view of the goddess saw them serving three basic literary roles tied to fertility and the cycle of the seasons: goddesses of life, goddesses of death, and goddesses of regeneration (Leonard and McClure 113-114)

The Masculine Divine

According to the Goddess Theory, the Masculine Divine began as "Dying Gods" who rise quickly, become consorts of the Great Goddess, and fall into death, following the seasonal vegetative cycle (Leonard and McClure 185-188). Prehistoric cultures also celebrated shaman figures that use trances, chanting, and dancing to mediate between their people and supernatural powers (Leonard and McClure 188). One such shaman figured is believed to be represented by the Sorcerer of Trois Freres, a cave painting discovered in France and dated to approximately 13,000 BCE. The figure is of a stag that combines human and animal traits (Leonard and McClure 188).