I recently discovered that the Pagan magazine SageWoman has an archive of selected articles from past issues. One article that caught my eye was Issue 74's "Why We Need the Queen" by Barbara Ardinger. In this article, Ardinger explores the concept of the Triple Goddess, a tripartite deity most commonly associated with Wicca and other Goddess-centered paths. The phases of the moon, the phases of a woman's life, and the phases of the world around us are seen to be reflected in the trinity of virgin and wondrous Maiden, bountiful and loving Mother, and mysterious and wise Crone. Ardinger supposes that this deity concept is too simple for the myriad of trials and tribulations modern women face. As examples, she offers teenage mothers - have they given up their Maidenhood with pregnancy? - and women going through menopause - does a decline in physical fertility mean the end of a creative life? Ardinger also looks at the moon, noting that rather than three phases, there are four - dark/new moon, waxing, full, and waning. Which is the missing archetype? Queen.
Settled between Mother and Crone, a Queen is a woman who has come into her prime, in the perfect point in her life to give back to the community; she has gone through the pure joy and unadultured love of life as the Maiden, given birth to children, projects, or businesses, or mentored others, as the Mother, and has not yet started to experience the physical decline and exhaustion often associated with Cronehood. A Queen has amassed wisdom that comes from experience and is still in a position, physically, mentally, and emotionally, to be powerful within the community. (This may partly be interpretation on my part and not at all what Ardinger meant to imply, but it feels like the concept of Queen could undermine the equally important Crone stage, but it would be completely up to personal viewpoints and preference.)
One aspect that particularly struck me about Ardinger's article was the fact that age and a woman's actual life cycle may not correspond as neatly to the Triple (or Quadruple?) Goddess as some books and websites have suggested. Is a Maiden a pre-pubescent girl, a woman who has never had sex, someone who has never married, or someone who has no children? Is a mother a mother even if they're at a young age, or have no children but create in other ways? Must a crone begin at menopause when so many women show years of experience on relatively young faces? Ardinger seems more to espouse a self-identification that allows women themselves to choose their phase of life. If pushed to do so, I would identify as a halfway point between Maiden and Mother, but I would be extremely loathe to leave the experience of Maidenhood behind. I feel that while I've started to create and give back to the world, I've also just discovered that there's so much for me to do and learn.
Following up on Ardinger's article, I would suggest a fifth archetype slid between Maiden and Mother (as the moon have five faces - new, crescent, half, gibbous, and full). I'm toying with the names of Lover, Warrior, Priestess, or something like that - maybe the name would be up to the individual practitioner. For me, Maiden has a very young association - think Persephone, whose alternative name Kore literally means "girl". So-called virgin goddesses such as Athena and Artemis seem to be too worldly for me to comfortably identify them as the Maiden Goddess. (Besides, "virgin" in the Classical world would not have necessarily meant a woman who had never had sex. A virgin could have been a strong woman who never married, or who kept her independence from her spouse.) I'm still working on how to get a fivefold Goddess to fit within the phases of the moon (although who says She has to be lunar?), but here is a very basic breakdown of the five types within a Classical context:
Maiden: Persephone/Kore/Proseprine, daughter of Demeter, goddess of Spring, taken later in her mythological cycle to be the wife of Hades.
Warrior: Athena/Minerva, goddess of strategic, defensive warfare (rather than the mindless violence of Ares), crafts, learning, and the Greek polis, or city-state. Athens is her city.
Mother: Demeter/Ceres, goddess of fertility, crops, and the earth. Her Greek name come from Da Mater, which literally translates to "the Mother." A mystery cult focused on Demeter and her daughter Persephone were celebrated at the city of Eleusis.
Queen: Hera/Juno, goddess of marriage, women, and motherhood. She's portrayed primarily a woman reacting to the infidelity of her husband, Zeus, but I like to think of her as a very regal woman, proud and sure of herself and her self worth.
Crone: Hekate/Trivia, a triple goddess in her own right, guarding crossroads, thresholds, and other such places. She's been adopted as a patron of witchcraft and magic by many.
None of these are perfect matches, and all goddess can play roles beyond their primary "function." Persephone, Maiden of Springtime, also spends half the year serving as Queen of the Underworld with her consort Hades. Athena could be a Maiden, as a virgin, Mother, with her association with crafts, or Queen, with her association with justice and community. Demeter may be considered Queen of the Earth (different than the personification of Earth Herself - the Greeks knew the physical earth as Gaia) or, when she wanders the planet in search of her daughter, an itinerant Crone. Hera has obvious associations with Motherhood. Hekate I don't know enough about to say what other roles she might play - perhaps Queen of magic, or even cycling back to Maiden, reflecting the joy and awe that comes from learning of the magical realms. If you'll also notice, three of the five goddesses take part in the same mythic arc: the kidnap of Persephone by Hades. (Hekate is the one who alerts the Olympians to Persephone's hiding place.)
Ardinger also cites The Women’s Wheel of Life, by Elizabeth
Davis and Carol Leonard, which explores thirteen goddess/woman archetypes. The more archetypes and faces of the Goddess the better, I say. I admit that it's a bit of a moot point for myself, never being particularly fond of the Goddess, definite-article-with-a-capital-G-thank-you-very-much, Triple or otherwise, partly because of some reasons outlined by Ardinger herself. Keeping this in mind, I still think it's good for everyone to play mental gymnastics once in awhile, looking close at the trappings and tropes you hold and tweaking them a bit. Does every Wiccan need to go out and change the number of faces of the Goddess they honor? Of course not. But I feel like for a concept so deeply ingrained in the Neo-Pagan community, the Triple Goddess should get examined once in awhile. If anything, honoring the goddesses and women who fall outside the Maiden-Mother-Crone trinity can bring the same sort of reverence as honoring those who fully embrace what, for them, is an empowering archetype.
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