The fertility goddess is both mother and virgin
The Great Mother is a virgin, too, in a sense other than that intended by the patriarchate, which later misunderstood her as the symbol of chastity.
Precisely in virtue of her fruitfulness, she is a virgin, that is, unrelated and not dependent upon any man.
In Sanskrit, “independent woman” is a synonym for a harlot.
Hence the woman who is unattached to a man is not only a universal feminine type but a sacral type in antiquity.
The Amazon is unattached in her independence, but so is the woman who represents and is responsible for the fertility of the earth.
She is the mother of all that has been born or will be born; but only in a brief access of passion, if at all, does she burn for the male, who is simply a means to an end, the bearer of the phallus.
All phallus cults-and they are invariably solemnized by women-harp on the same thing: the anonymous power of the fertilizing agent, the phallus that stands by itself.
The human element, the individual, is merely the bearer-the passing and interchangeable bearer-of that which does not pass away and cannot be interchanged because it is ever the self-same phallus.
Accordingly, the fertility goddess is both mother and virgin, the hetaera who belongs to no man but is ready to give herself to any man.
She is there for anybody who, like herself, stands in the service of fertility.
By turning to her womb, he serves her, the sacred representative of the great fertility principle.
The ‘”bridal veil” must be understood in this sense, as the symbol of kedesha, the harlot.
She is “unknown,” i.e., anonymous.
To be “unveiled” means to be naked, but this is only another form of anonymity.
Always the goddess, the transpersonal, is the real and operative factor. ― Erich Neumann, The Origins and History of Consciousness, Page 52-53
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