Etymology of “Virgin Mary”

By now you’ve probably heard/read that the word “virgin” was not always what it has meant in the English tongue for centuries now. Perhaps you’ve been told that the word meant things like “free” or even a term for “goddess”. But were you also told where those definitions came from? I find most folks just say these things and leave it at that. I’m here and nerd enough to give some historical hints. 

Virgin is NOT a term synonymous with “goddess”. Many Greco-Roman goddesses were indeed given this title when they were not married, retaining their great powers by virtue of this virginity as self sovereignty. Considering how Queer ancient Greece and subsequently Rome was, the contemporary postulations that these Hellenistic virgin goddesses, such as the lunar huntress Artemis, are lesbian goddesses isn’t so far out there. This manlessness condition of virginity morphed to meaning unmarried, even among males, for mortals in Hellenistic culture such as is in the case of Mary of the Gospels, which were first written in Greek btw. It is only centuries after the contemporary time of the New Testament’s original recording that the term “virgin” was firmly cemented in the context of sexual inexperience in order to attach the idea of spiritual purity to chastity. This is clearly traceable. No need to speculate. Obviously a political move by the Church who gained control of all European monarchies during the medieval period, decimating local indigenous pagan cultures. Still the original Latin root of “virgin”, despite as much as is known about the term applied to Hellenistic deities, is debatable and mysterious. The Latin use is often traced to an analogy with “vireo”, meaning "fresh or flourishing", typically in a botanical sense, specifically in the sense of growing WILD and FREE, and not having been planted agriculturally under man’s control, yet fertile all the same. 🌱🍎 

But what about the unwed (aka not owned by man according to the government) mother Mary herself? 

The etymology of “Mary” is even vastly more mysterious than her “virgin” title…

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