Alone of All Her Sex: The Myth and the Cult of the Virgin Mary

Like an appealing art gallery guide, Warner conducts a grand tour of the legends, literature, and imagery concerning Mother Mary. Along the way she exposes vast differences in the messages these artists make Mary convey. On one hand, Warner shows the church moving to emphasize a host of pre-Christian rules about the ranking of males over females, and enforcement of taboos concerning sexual pollution -- to a point where all contact between men and women was a sin to be forgiven, and all love for women was a form of idolatry. As Matfré Ermengaud put it in the 1200s, "Satan, in order to make men suffer bitterly, makes them adore women; for instead of loving as they should, the creator with fervent love, with all their heart, with all their mind, ... they sinfully love women". (p. 153.) Only males who had no part in such sin could mediate forgiveness for it. On the other hand, Warner shows the rising popular devotion to women and mothers, taking form as troubadour art and as the great cult of Mother Mary. What did it mean to love her? Countering a rise of romantic ideals, the monastic artists promoted Mary as an expression of devotion for chastity. While formally shunning all earthly females, they pointed the parishioners toward a more worthy object for their devotion -- the chaste and non-physical woman of their spiritual dreams in heaven. In the "counter-romance" of clerical poetry about Mary, chastity was actually marriage to the Virgin in heaven. The Virgin called all men to love her, and was offended if they spurned her for mortal females. In a French clerical story of the 1300's, the "Miracles de Notre Dame par Personnages", a young man considers monastic vows, but then falls in love with a woman. The Virgin Mary appears and rebukes him in his bedroom: "How can this be, since I am who I am, that you are leaving me for another woman? It seems you're badly underrating my worth and my beauty. ... You must be drunk to give your whole heart and all your love to a woman of this earth? And to leave me, the lady of heaven?" (p. 156.) Warner's juxaposition of troubadour and clerical lore shows a marvelous, artfully conducted arguement over what is good, what is beautiful, and what we can aspire to. --author of Correcting Jesus

Like an appealing art gallery guide, Warner conducts a grand tour of the legends, literature, and imagery concerning Mother Mary. Along the way she exposes vast differences in the messages these artists make Mary convey. On one hand, Warner shows the church moving to emphasize a host of pre-Christian rules about the ranking of males over females, and enforcement of taboos concerning sexual pollution -- to a point where all contact between men and women was a sin to be forgiven, and all love for women was a form of idolatry. As Matfré Ermengaud put it in the 1200s, "Satan, in order to make men suffer bitterly, makes them adore women; for instead of loving as they should, the creator with fervent love, with all their heart, with all their mind, ... they sinfully love women". (p. 153.) Only males who had no part in such sin could mediate forgiveness for it. On the other hand, Warner shows the rising popular devotion to women and mothers, taking form as troubadour art and as the great cult of Mother Mary. What did it mean to love her? Countering a rise of romantic ideals, the monastic artists promoted Mary as an expression of devotion for chastity. While formally shunning all earthly females, they pointed the parishioners toward a more worthy object for their devotion -- the chaste and non-physical woman of their spiritual dreams in heaven. In the "counter-romance" of clerical poetry about Mary, chastity was actually marriage to the Virgin in heaven. The Virgin called all men to love her, and was offended if they spurned her for mortal females. In a French clerical story of the 1300's, the "Miracles de Notre Dame par Personnages", a young man considers monastic vows, but then falls in love with a woman. The Virgin Mary appears and rebukes him in his bedroom: "How can this be, since I am who I am, that you are leaving me for another woman? It seems you're badly underrating my worth and my beauty. ... You must be drunk to give your whole heart and all your love to a woman of this earth? And to leave me, the lady of heaven?" (p. 156.) Warner's juxaposition of troubadour and clerical lore shows a marvelous, artfully conducted arguement over what is good, what is beautiful, and what we can aspire to.

Warner's book is far more than a mere history of the Virgin Mary. It is not intended for devout Catholics who only wish to hear praise heaped on the mother of God. What Warner does is chronicle the journey that Mary has taken throughout history, highlighting her many cultural guises and pointing out how they have historically been used to reflect the political motivations of the church. For anyone who is looking to read something beyond the sterile propoganda of a religion that has too long controlled the way in which people perceive and treat women, this is a book that will answer many questions. A beautiful read, written sensitively by a woman who knows Catholicism intimately, but who has been disillusioned by the deeply misogynistic foundations of the Catholic faith.

This was a fabulous resource for understanding the evolution of the Marian cult. The one weakness of this book is that it did not deal with the pre-Christian origins of the Marian cult. Other resources, however, cover the evolution of the Anatolian fertility cult of Cybele into the Roman Magna Mater and later into the so-called "BVM". The author does a good job of showing the origins of various aspects of Mariology and contrasting these developments with Christianity in the West. The author has done a great service to those who wish to more fully understand the syncretic process which blended Christianity with various pagan religions and medeival political structures to create the Roman Catholic Church.

I found the author's non-Catholic bias wonderfully refreshing...here is someone who isn't interested in trying to convert the masses or paint the Catholic church in a wonderful light _ she's simply providing information about the Virgin for the reader to do with it what she will. As a non-Catholic who has had an academic interest in the Virgin Cult for the past four years, I found reading Warner's book a relief, for here wasn't an author who felt the need to convert me. Kudos to Warner.