The Origin of Woman.

THE problem of womanhood has found different expressions in different ages. In prehistoric times all great questions were answered mythologically. Cosmogeny and anthropogeny, including gynecogeny, were expressed in stories of gods, while in later periods the same facts remained and found different solutions in religious dogmas and still later in scientific investigations.

The same subjects have been treated in a different spirit during the Christian era and again differently still under the influence of a scientific world-conception. Socrates respected the gods but he no longer believed in them as personalities. He explained them as signifying some facts of experience. To him love found expression in a belief in Aphrodite and in her powerful son, Eros. Further, his disciple Plato explains to us the significance of love and devotes a special dialogue to a discussion of its meaning in every aspect. This dialogue of Plato’s, the Symposium, may truly be characterized as the most poetical and most interesting discussion of{122} Greek philosophy. It tells of a banquet to which Agathon has invited his friends, among whom we find the philosopher Socrates, the poet Aristophanes (the disciple of Socrates), Pausanias, Phaedrus and some others. After dinner Phaedrus proposes to make speeches in honor of love, and Pausanias begins by drawing a distinction between heavenly and earthly love, extolling the former and giving scant praise to the latter. Aristophanes is the next speaker, but, being prevented by a severe hiccup from taking up the discussion, gives precedence to Eryximachus, the physician. This speaker approves the distinction made by Pausanias, but generalizes the conception of love by regarding it as a universal principle, bringing about the harmony that regulates nature in the course of the seasons in its relations of moist and dry, hot and cold, etc., and whose absence is marked by diseases of all sorts. Aristophanes, having recovered from his hiccup, proposes to offer a new explanation setting forth a novel theory of the origin of human nature.( The Origin of Woman / Paul Carus /The Venus of Milo: an archeological study of the goddess of womanhood))

The Cult of Aphrodita!

POLYTHEISM is not a stable religion. It changes with the growth of civilization, and we do not know a time in which it was not constantly in a state of transition.

The myths which connect Aphrodite in one place with Adonis, in others with Mars, Hephæstos, Anchises and other gods or mortals, were originally several different developments of the same fundamental idea, the love story of the goddess of love. This is quite natural and ought to be expected, but when in the days of a more international communication these myths were told in different shapes in all localities, they in their combination served greatly to undermine the respect for the goddess and to degrade the conception of her even as early as in the time when the Homeric epics were composed. Nevertheless, since the sarcasm remained limited for a long time to the circle of heretics and scoffers, the noble conception of Aphrodite was preserved down to the latest days of paganism.

In other words Venus was originally the mother{69} of mankind. She was at once the Queen of Heaven or Juno, the Magna Mater or Venus Genetrix, the educator and teacher or Pallas Athene, the eternal virgin or Diana, and the all-nourishing earth-goddess, Demeter or Ceres; and this view had better be stated inversely, that the original mother of mankind became differentiated in the course of history into these several activities of womanhood, as Juno, Venus, Diana, Ceres and Athene, which divinities were again reunited in Christianity in the form of Mary, the Queen of Heaven, the Mother of God, the Lady as an authority and guide in life, and the Eternal Virgin.

Aphrodite was worshiped in a prehistoric age, and the origin of her cult is plainly traceable to the Orient, especially to Phenicia and further back to Pamphylia, Syria, Canaan and Babylon. The Phenician Astarte was imported to the islands of the Ægean Sea, to Cythera, Paphos and Amathus. Hence even in the Hellenistic age she was still honored with the names Cytherea, Paphia and Amathusia.(the cult of aphrodita/ paul carus /The Venus of Milo: an archeological study of the goddess of womanhood)

Blue eyes girl

To all lovers of carrots we would re- commend this fair complex, and blue ey’d nymph; she is now steering into the nineteenth year, and has very little of the vulgarity too often found in the sister- hood, but would be rather silent than speak nonsense: the mere sensualist will not find her quite to his fancy, but she will please the delicate and sensible, who can spend the dull pause of joy with her agreeably, till call’d by nature to repeti- tion; in which, as well as in conservation, we are informed she is equally charming.(Harrist List of Covent-Garden Ladies)

A fine tall woman!

It is remarkable, that her lovers are most commonly of a diminutive size. The vanity of surmounting such a fine tall woman, is, doubtless, an incentive to many, to so unmatch themselves, that they are content to be like a sweet-bread on a breast of veal. Yet, notwithstand- ing her size, we hear her low countries are far from being capacious, but like a well made boot, is drawn on the leg with some difficulty, and fits so close, as to give great pleasure to the wearer; it is about two years since her boot has been ac- customed to wear legs in it, and though often soaled, (sold) yet never wears out.(Harris’s List of Covent Garden Ladies / number36)

The garden of the Goddess

The temple of Aphrodite-Astarte stood outside the gates of the town, in an immense park, full of flowers and shade. The Nile water, conveyed by seven aqueducts, induced an extraordinary verdure all the year round.

The gardens were more than a valley, more than a country; they were a complete world enclosed by bounds of stone and governed by a goddess, the soul and centre of this universe. All around it stood a circular terrace, eighty stades long and thirty-two feet high. This was not a wall, it was a colossal “cité,” composed of fourteen hundred houses. A corresponding number of prostitutes inhabited this sacred town, and in this unique spot were represented seventy different nationalities.

The plan of the sacred houses was uniform and as follows: the door, of red copper (a metal consecrated to the goddess), bore a phallos-shaped knocker which fell upon a receiving-plate in relief, the image of the cteis; and beneath was graved the courtesan’s name, with the initials of the usual formula:…….(Ancient Manners; Also Known As Aphrodite / Louÿs, Pierre)

Goddesses

In Greece, the courtezans were in some measure connected with the religion of the country. The Goddess of Beauty had her altars; and she was supposed to protect prostitution, which was to her a species of worship. The people invoked Venus in times of danger; and, after a battle, they thought they had done honor to Miltiades and Themistocles, because the Laises and the Glyceras of the age had chaunted hymns to their Goddess.

The courtezans were likewise connected with religion, by means of the arts. Their persons afforded models for statues, which were afterwards adored in the temples. Phryne served as a model to Praxiteles, for his Venus of Cnidus. During the feasts of Neptune, near Eleusis, Apelles having seen the same courtezan on the sea-shore, without any other veil than her loose and flowing hair, was so much struck with her 21appearance, that he borrowed from it the idea of his Venus rising from the waves.(Grecian courtezans/ Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World)

Enchantment and softness.

What enchantment and softness, what roguish charm play about her none too small mouth! Her skin is so infinitely delicate, that the blue veins show through everywhere; even through the muslin covering her arms and bosom. How abundant her red hair-it is red, not blonde or golden-yellow—how diabolically and yet tenderly it plays around her neck! Now her eyes meet mine like green lightnings—they are green, these eyes of hers, whose power is so indescribable—green, but as are precious stones, or deep unfathomable mountain lakes.(venus in furs /to love)

A woman’s dress

A woman’s dress—

She is there—Venus—but without furs—No, this time it is merely the widow—and yet—Venus-oh, what a woman!

As she stands there in her light white morning gown, looking at me, her slight figure seems full of poetry and grace. She is neither large, nor small; her head is alluring, piquant—in the sense of the period of the French marquises—rather than formally beautiful. What enchantment and softness, what roguish charm play about her none too small mouth! Her skin is so infinitely delicate, that the blue veins show through everywhere; even through the muslin covering her arms and bosom. How abundant her red hair-it is red, not blonde or golden-yellow—how diabolically and yet tenderly it plays around her neck! Now her eyes meet mine like green lightnings—they are green, these eyes of hers, whose power is so indescribable—green, but as are precious stones, or deep unfathomable mountain lakes.(venus in furs /to love)

Women of Halls

It was this flexibility of mind, this active intelligence tempered with sensibility and the native instinct of pleasing, that distinguished the French women who have left such enduring traces upon their time. “It is not sufficient to be wise, it is necessary also to please,” said the witty and penetrating Ninon, who thus very aptly condensed the feminine philosophy of her race. Perhaps she has revealed the secret of their fascination, the indefinable something which is as difficult to analyze as the perfume of a rose. (woman of french halls/ seventin salon)

Venus in Furs

“But the Almighty Lord hath struck him, and hath delivered him into the hands of a woman.”

(Venus in Furs—The Vulgate, Judith, xvi. 7)

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