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This article is about adult human females. For other uses, see Woman (disambiguation).

"Women" redirects here. For other uses, see Women (disambiguation).

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Woman

Woman Montage (1).jpg Left to right from top: Sappho • Venus • Joan of Arc • Eva Perón • Marie Curie • Indira Gandhi • Venus of Willendorf • Wangari Maathai • Mother Teresa • Grace Hopper • Mamechiho, a Geisha • a Tibetan farmer • Marilyn Monroe • Oprah Winfrey • Aung San Suu Kyi • Mata Hari • Isis • the Queen of Sheba • Elizabeth I • Florence Owens Thompson

A woman (/ˈwʊmən/), pl: women (/ˈwɪmɨn/) is a female human. The term woman is usually reserved for an adult, with the term girl being the usual term for a female child or adolescent. However, the term woman is also sometimes used to identify a female human, regardless of age, as in phrases such as "Women's rights". Women are typically capable of giving birth, though older women who have gone through menopause and some intersex women cannot.

Contents

 [hide] 1 Etymology 1.1 Biological symbol

2 Terminology 3 History 4 Biology and gender 5 Culture and gender roles 6 Education 6.1 OECD countries 6.1.1 Education 6.1.2 Jobs

7 See also 8 References 9 Further reading 10 External links

Etymology

In Old English, wīfmann meant "female human", whereas wēr meant "male human". Mann or monn had a gender-neutral meaning of "human", corresponding to Modern English "person" or "someone", however subsequent to the Norman Conquest, man began to be used more in reference to "male human", and by the late 1200s had begun to eclipse usage of the older term wēr.[1] The medial labial consonants f and m in wīfmann coalesced into the modern form "woman", while the initial element, which meant "female," underwent semantic narrowing to the sense of a married woman ("wife"). It is a popular misconception that the term "woman" is etymologically connected with "womb", which is from a separate Old English word, wambe meaning "stomach" (of male or female). Nevertheless, such a false derivation of "woman" has appeared in print.[2]

A very common Indo-European root for woman, *gwen-, is the source of modern English "queen" (Old English cwēn had primarily meant woman, highborn or not; this is still the case in Danish, with the modern spelling kvinde, as well as in Swedish kvinna). The word gynaecology is also derived from the Ancient Greek cognate γυνή gynē, woman. Other English words traceable to the same Indo-European root include banshee "fairy woman" (from Irish bean "woman" and sí "fairy") and zenana (from Persian زن zan).[3]

The Latin fēmina, whence female, is likely from the root in fellāre (to suck), in reference to breastfeeding.[4]

Biological symbol

The symbol for the planet Venus is the sign also used in biology for the female sex. It is a stylized representation of the goddess Venus's hand-mirror or an abstract symbol for the goddess: a circle with a small equilateral cross underneath (Unicode: ♀). The Venus symbol also represented femininity, and in ancient alchemy stood for copper. Alchemists constructed the symbol from a circle (representing spirit) above an equilateral cross (representing matter).

Terminology

Further information: girl, virgin, mother, wife, goodwife, lady, maid, maiden, and widow

Womanhood is the period in a female's life after she has passed through childhood and adolescence, generally around the age 18. Puberty generally begins at about age 10, followed by menarche at age 12 to 13. Many cultures have rites of passage to symbolize a girl's coming of age, such as confirmation in some branches of Christianity, bat mitzvah in Judaism, or even just the custom of a special celebration for a certain birthday (generally between 12 and 21), like the Quinceañera of Latin America.

Aphrodite, a classical image of youthful female beauty in Western art. The word woman can be used generally, to mean any female human, or specifically, to mean an adult female human as contrasted with girl. The word girl originally meant "young person of either sex" in English;[citation needed] it was only around the beginning of the 16th century that it came to mean specifically a female child. The term girl is sometimes used colloquially to refer to a young or unmarried woman, however during the early 1970s feminists challenged such use because the use of the word to refer to a fully grown woman may cause offence. In particular, previously common terms such as office girl are no longer widely used. Conversely, in certain cultures which link family honor with female virginity, the word girl is still used to refer to a never-married woman; in this sense it is used in a fashion roughly analogous to the obsolete English maid or maiden. Referring to an unmarried female human as a woman may, in such a culture, imply that she is sexually experienced, which would be an insult to her family.

There are various words used to refer to the quality of being a woman. The term "womanhood" merely means the state of being a woman, having passed the menarche; "femininity" is used to refer to a set of typical female qualities associated with a certain attitude to gender roles; "womanliness" is like "femininity", but is usually associated with a different view of gender roles; "femaleness" is a general term, but is often used as shorthand for "human femaleness"; "distaff" is an archaic adjective derived from women's conventional role as a spinner, now used only as a deliberate archaism; "muliebrity" is a neologism (derived from the Latin) meant to provide a female counterpart of "virility", but used very loosely, sometimes to mean merely "womanhood", sometimes "femininity" and sometimes even as a collective term for women.

History

The earliest women whose names are known through archaeology include: Enheduanna,[5][6] born c. 2285 BCE, the high priestess of the temple of the Moon God in the Sumerian city-state of Ur and possibly the first poet and first named author of either gender.[7] Tashlultum (fl. late 24th-early 23rd centuries BCE), Akkadian queen, wife of Sargon of Akkad and mother of Enheduanna.[8][9] Kugbau – a taverness from Kish chosen by the Nippur priesthood to become hegemonic ruler of Sumer, and in later ages deified as "Kubaba" Baranamtara - prominent and influential queen of Lugalanda of Lagash. Other known pre-Sargonic queens of the first Lagash dynasty include Menbara-abzu, Ashume'eren, Ninkhilisug, Dimtur, and Shagshag, and the names of several princesses are also known. Puabi or Shubad – queen of Ur whose tomb was discovered with many expensive artifacts. Other known pre-Sargonic queens of Ur (royal wives) include Ashusikildigir, Ninbanda, and Gansamannu.[10] Peseshet (c. 2600 BCE), a physician in Ancient Egypt.[11][12] Merit-Ptah (c. 2700 BCE) also lived in Egypt and is the earliest known female physician and scientist.[13] Merneith (c. 3000 BCE), consort and regent of ancient Egypt during the first dynasty. She may have been ruler of Egypt in her own right.[14][15] Neithhotep (c. 3200 BCE), the wife of Narmer and the first queen of ancient Egypt.[16][17]

Biology and gender

The human female reproductive system.

Spectral karyotype of a human female.

Woman nursing her infant

In terms of biology, the female sex organs are involved in the reproductive system, whereas the secondary sex characteristics are involved in nurturing children or, in some cultures, attracting a mate. The ovaries, in addition to their regulatory function producing hormones, produce female gametes called eggs which, when fertilized by male gametes (sperm), form new genetic individuals. The uterus is an organ with tissue to protect and nurture the developing fetus and muscle to expel it when giving birth. The vagina is used in copulation and birthing (although the word vagina is often colloquially and incorrectly used for the vulva or external female genitalia, which also includes the labia, the clitoris, and the female urethra). The breast evolved from the sweat gland to produce milk, a nutritious secretion that is the most distinctive characteristic of mammals, along with live birth. In mature women, the breast is generally more prominent than in most other mammals; this prominence, not necessary for milk production, is probably at least partially the result of sexual selection. (For other ways in which men commonly differ physically from women, see Man.)

An imbalance of maternal hormonal levels and some chemicals (or drugs) may alter the secondary sexual characteristics of fetuses. Most women have the karyotype 46,XX, but around one in a thousand will be 47,XXX, and one in 2500 will be 45,X. This contrasts with the typical male karotype of 46,XY; thus, the X and Y chromosomes are known as female and male, respectively. Because humans inherit mitochondrial DNA only from the mother's ovum, genetic studies of the female line tend to focus on mitochondrial DNA.

Biological factors are not sufficient determinants of which gender a person identifies with. Intersex individuals, who have mixed physical and/or genetic features, may use other criteria in making a clear determination. According to a study done at Brown University, 1.7 percent births are of intersex babies. At that rate, if 300,000 babies were born, 5,100 would have varying degrees of intersexual development. However, at birth, these babies were assigned a gender based on their genitalia. In some cases even if a child had XX chromosomes, if they were born with a penis, they were raised as a male.[18] There are also transgender or transsexual women, who were born or physically assigned as male at birth, but identify as women; there are varying social, legal and individual definitions with regard to these issues. (See trans woman.)

Although fewer females than males are born (the ratio is around 1:1.05), due to a longer life expectancy there are only 81 men aged 60 or over for every 100 women of the same age. Women typically have a longer life expectancy than men.[19] This is due to a combination of factors: genetics (redundant and varied genes present on sex chromosomes in women); sociology (such as not being expected in most countries to perform military service); health-impacting choices (such as suicide or the use of cigarettes, and alcohol); the presence of the female hormone estrogen, which has a cardioprotective effect in premenopausal women; and the effect of high levels of androgens in men. Out of the total human population, there are 101.3 men for every 100 women (source: 2001 World Almanac).

Most women go through menarche and are then able to become pregnant and bear children.[20] This generally requires internal fertilization of her eggs with the sperm of a man through sexual intercourse, though artificial insemination or the surgical implantation of an existing embryo is also possible (see reproductive technology). The study of female reproduction and reproductive organs is called gynaecology.

There are some diseases that primarily affect women, such as lupus. Also, there are some sex-related illnesses that are found more frequently or exclusively in women, e.g., breast cancer, cervical cancer, or ovarian cancer. Women and men may have different symptoms of an illness and may also respond differently to medical treatment. This area of medical research is studied by gender-based medicine.

During early fetal development, embryos of both sexes appear gender-neutral. As in cases without two sexes, such as species that reproduce asexually, the gender-neutral appearance is closer to female than to male. A fetus develops into a male if it is exposed to testosterone (typically because the fetus has a Y chromosome from the father). Otherwise, the fetus develops into a female, typically when the fetus has an X chromosome from the father, but also when the father contributed neither an X nor Y chromosome. Later at puberty, estrogen feminizes a young woman, giving her adult sexual characteristics.

Culture and gender roles

Main article: Gender role

A woman weaving. Textile work has historically been a female occupation in many cultures.

In many prehistoric cultures, women assumed a particular cultural role. In gatherer-hunter societies, women were generally the gatherers of plant foods, small animal foods and fish, while men hunted meat from large animals.

In more recent history, the gender roles of women have changed greatly. Traditionally, middle class women were involved in domestic tasks emphasizing child care. For poorer women, especially working class women, although this often remained an ideal,[specify] economic necessity compelled them to seek employment outside the home. The occupations that were available to them were, however, lower in pay than those available to men.

"The Life & Age of Woman - Stages of Woman's Life from the Cradle to the Grave",1849

As changes in the labor market for women came about, availability of employment changed from only "dirty", long hour factory jobs to "cleaner", more respectable office jobs where more education was demanded, women's participation in the U.S. labor force rose from 6% in 1900 to 23% in 1923. These shifts in the labor force led to changes in the attitudes of women at work, allowing for the revolution which resulted in women becoming career and education oriented.

In the 1970s, many academic women, including scientists, avoided having children. However, throughout the 1980s, institutions tried to equalize conditions for men and women in the workplace. However, the inequalities at home stumped women's opportunities to succeed as far as men. Professional women are still responsible for domestic labor and child care. As people would say, the have a "double burden" which does not allow then the time and energy to succeed in their careers. Furthermore, though there has been an increase in the endorsement of egalitarian gender roles in the home by both women and men, a recent research study showed that women focused on issues of morality, fairness, and well-being, while men focused on social conventions[21] Until the early twentieth century, U.S. women's colleges required their women faculty members to remain single, on the grounds that a woman could not carry on two full-time professions at once. According to Schiebinger, "Being a scientist and a wife and a mother is a burden in society that expects women more often than men to put family ahead of career. (pg. 93).[22]

Movements advocate equality of opportunity for both sexes and equal rights irrespective of gender. Through a combination of economic changes and the efforts of the feminist movement,[specify] in recent decades women in most societies now have access to careers beyond the traditional homemaker.

Although a greater number of women are seeking higher education, salaries are often less than those of men. CBS News claims that in the United States women who are ages 30 to 44 and hold a university degree make only 62 percent of what similarly qualified men do, a lower rate than in all but three of the 19 countries for which numbers are available. Some Western nations with greater inequity in pay are Germany, New Zealand and Switzerland.[23]

Education

Main article: Female education

OECD countries

Education

A female biologist weighs a desert tortoise before release.

The educational gender gap in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries has been reduced over the last 30 years. Younger women today are far more likely to have completed a tertiary qualification: in 19 of the 30 OECD countries, more than twice as many women aged 25 to 34 have completed tertiary education than have women aged 55 to 64. In 21 of 27 OECD countries with comparable data, the number of women graduating from university-level programmes is equal to or exceeds that of men. 15-year-old girls tend to show much higher expectations for their careers than boys of the same age.[24]

While women account for more than half of university graduates in several OECD countries, they receive only 30% of tertiary degrees granted in science and engineering fields, and women account for only 25% to 35% of researchers in most OECD countries.[25]

There is a common misconception that women have still not advanced in achieving academic degrees. According to Margaret Rossiter, a historian of science, women now earn 54 percent of all bachelor's degrees in the United States. However, although there are more women holding bachelors degrees than men, as the level of education increases, the more men tend to fit the statistics instead of women. At the graduate level, women fill 40 percent of the doctorate degrees (31 percent of them being in engineering).[26]

While to this day women are studying at prestigious universities at the same rate as men, they are not being given the same chance to join faculty. Sociologist Harriet Zuckerman has observed that the more prestigious an institute is, the more difficult and time consuming it will be for women to obtain a faculty position there. In 1989, Harvard University tenured its first woman in chemistry, Cynthia Friend, and in 1992 its first woman in physics, Melissa Franklin. She also observed that women were more likely to hold their first professional positions as instructors and lecturers while men are more likely to work first in tenure positions. According to Smith and Tang, as of 1989, 65 percent of men and only 40 percent of women held tenured positions and only 29 percent of all scientists and engineers employed as assistant professors in four-year colleges and universities were women.[27]

Jobs

In 1992, women earned 9 percent of the Ph.D.'s awarded in engineering but only one percent made it to become a professor. In 1995, 11 percent of professors in science and engineering were women. In relation, only 311 deans of engineering schools were women, which is less than 1 percent of the total. Even in psychology, a degree in which women earn the majority of Ph.D.'s, they hold a significant amount of fewer tenured positions, roughly 19 percent in 1994.[28]

See also: Roman festivals

Venus was offered official (state-sponsored) cult in certain festivals of the Roman calendar. Her sacred month was April (Latin Mensis Aprilis) which Roman etymologists understood to derive from aperire, "to open," with reference to the springtime blossoming of trees and flowers.[8]

Bronze figurine of Venus

Veneralia (April 1) was held in honour of Venus Verticordia ("Venus the Changer of Hearts"), and Fortuna Virilis (Virile or strong Good Fortune), whose cult was probably by far the older of the two. Venus Verticordia was invented in 220 BC, in response to advice from a Sibylline oracle during the last years of Rome's Punic Wars,[9] when a series of prodigies was taken to signify divine displeasure at sexual offenses among Romans of every category and class, including several men and three Vestal Virgins.[10] Her statue was dedicated by a young woman, chosen as the most pudica (sexually pure) in Rome by a committee of Roman matrons. At first, this statue was probably housed within Fortuna Virilis' temple, perhaps as divine reinforcement against the perceived moral and religious failings of its cult. In 114 BC Venus Verticordia was given her own temple.[11] She was meant to persuade Romans of both sexes and every class, whether married or unmarried, to cherish the traditional sexual proprieties and morality known to please the gods and benefit the State. During her rites, her cult image was taken from her temple to the men's baths, where it was undressed and washed in warm water by her female attendants, then garlanded with myrtle. Women and men asked Venus Verticordia's help in affairs of the heart, sex, betrothal and marriage. For Ovid, Venus's acceptance of the epithet and its attendant responsibilities represented a change of heart in the goddess herself.[12]

Vinalia urbana (April 23), a wine festival shared by Venus and Jupiter, king of the gods. Venus was patron of "profane" wine, for everyday human use. Jupiter was patron of the strongest, purest, sacrificial grade wine, and controlled the weather on which the autumn grape-harvest would depend. At this festival, men and women alike drank the new vintage of ordinary, non-sacral wine in honour of Venus, whose powers had provided humankind with this gift. Upper-class women gathered at Venus's Capitoline temple, where a libation of the previous year's vintage, sacred to Jupiter, was poured into a nearby ditch.[13] Common girls (vulgares puellae) and prostitutes gathered at Venus' temple just outside the Colline gate, where they offered her myrtle, mint, and rushes concealed in rose-bunches and asked her for "beauty and popular favour", and to be made "charming and witty".[14]

Vinalia Rustica (August 19), originally a rustic Latin festival of wine, vegetable growth and fertility. This was almost certainly Venus' oldest festival and was associated with her earliest known form, Venus Obsequens. Kitchen gardens and market-gardens, and presumably vineyards were dedicated to her.[15] Roman opinions differed on whose festival it was. Varro insists that the day was sacred to Jupiter, whose control of the weather governed the ripening of the grapes; but the sacrificial victim, a female lamb (agna), may be evidence that it once belonged to Venus alone.[16][17]

Festival of Venus Genetrix (September 26) held from 46 BC at her Temple in the Forum of Caesar, in fulfillment of a promise to the goddess by Julius Caesar, in return for his victory. Its rites are not known.

Private cults and everyday life [edit]

Venus and Mars, with Cupid attending, in a wall painting from Pompeii

Images of Venus have been found in domestic murals, mosaics and household shrines (lararia). Petronius, in his Satyricon, places an image of Venus among the Lares of the freedman Trimalchio's lararium.[18] Prospective brides offered Venus a gift "before the wedding"; the nature of the gift, and its timing, are unknown. Some Roman sources say that girls who come of age offer their toys to Venus; it is unclear where the offering is made, and others say this gift is to the Lares.[19] In dice-games, a popular pastime among Romans of all classes, the luckiest, best possible roll was known as "Venus".

Signs and symbols [edit]

Venus' signs were for the most part the same as Aphrodite's. They included roses, which were offered in Venus' Porta Collina rites,[20] and above all, myrtle (Latin murtos), which was cultivated for its white, sweetly scented flowers, aromatic, evergreen leaves and its various medical-magical properties. Before its adoption into Venus' cults, myrtle was used in the purification rites of Cloacina, the Etruscan-Roman goddess of Rome's main sewer; later, Cloacina's association with Venus' sacred plant made her Venus Cloacina. Likewise, Roman folk-etymology transformed the ancient, obscure goddess Murcia into "Venus of the Myrtles, whom we now call Murcia".[21] Venus' statues and her worshipers wore myrtle crowns at her festivals.[22]

Roman generals given an ovation, a lesser form of Roman triumph, wore a myrtle crown to purify themselves and their armies of blood-guilt. The ovation was assimilated to Venus Victrix ("Victorious Venus"), who was held to have granted and purified its relatively "easy" victory.[23][24]

Myrtle was thought a particularly potent aphrodisiac. The female pudendum, particularly the clitoris, was known as murtos (myrtle). As goddess of love and sex, Venus played an essential role at Roman prenuptial rites and wedding nights, so myrtle and roses were used in bridal bouquets; but the marriage itself was under the authority of Juno, not Venus; so myrtle was excluded from the bridal crown. In the rites to Bona Dea, a goddess of female chastity,[25] Venus, myrtle and anything male were not only excluded, but unmentionable. The wine used at these rites was not Venus' ordinary, everyday wine but Jupiter's wine, the strongest, sacrificial grade, which was otherwise reserved for the Roman gods, and for Roman men. For the duration of the festival it was euphemistically referred to as "honey". Under these special circumstances, the women could get virtuously, religiously drunk on strong wine, safe from Venus' temptations. Outside of this context, ordinary wine (that is, Venus' wine) tinctured with myrtle oil was thought a particularly suitable drink for women.[26]

Temples [edit]

Venus' first Roman temple was dedicated to Venus Obsequens ("Propitious Venus") in 293 BC, on the Esquiline Hill, supposedly subsidised by fines imposed on Roman women for sexual misdemeanours.[27] Shortly after 217 BC, a temple was founded on the Capitoline Hill to house the image of Venus Erycina, captured from the Sicilian town of Eryx.[28][29] Another temple to Venus Erycina as a fertility deity[30] was built around 181, just outside the Colline Gate.[31] Pompey the Great's theatre, dedicated in 55 BC on the Campus Martius, included a large temple to Venus Victrix; his rival Julius Caesar vowed and built a temple to Venus in his new-built forum.[32] In 135 AD the Emperor Hadrian inaugurated a temple to Venus Felix (Lucky Venus) and the goddess Roma Aeterna (Eternal Rome) on Rome's Velian Hill. It was the largest temple in Ancient Rome.[33]

In the late Roman Republican era, Vitruvius recommends that any new temple to Venus be sited according to rules laid down by the Etruscan haruspices, and built "near to the gate" of the city, where it would be less likely to contaminate "the matrons and youth with the influence of lust". He finds the Corinthian style, slender, elegant, enriched with ornamental leaves and surmounted by volutes, appropriate to Venus' character and disposition.[34] Vitruvius recommends the widest possible spacing between the temple columns, producing a light and airy space, and he offers Venus's temple in Caesar's forum as an example of how not to do it; the densely spaced, thickset columns darken the interior, hide the temple doors and crowd the walkways, so that matrons who wish to honour the goddess must enter her temple in single file, rather than arm-in arm.[35]

Development [edit]

Julius Caesar, with Venus holding Victoria on reverse, from February or March 44 BC

Crispina, wife of Commodus, with enthroned Venus Felix holding Victory on reverse

The earliest known cult to Venus in Rome was the cult to Venus Obsequens, ("Propitious Venus"), vowed by Q. Fabius Gurges, supposedly in the heat of battle, in return for his victory over the Samnites. According to tradition, the temple and cult were funded by fines imposed on Roman women for sexual misdemeanours. Its rites and character were probably influenced by or based on Greek Aphrodite's cults, already diffused in various forms throughout Italian Magna Graeca. The dedication date connects this form of Venus to the Vinalia festival.[36][37]

A second, rather different cult to Venus was created during the opening episodes of the Second Punic War between Rome, Carthage and their respective allies. After Rome's catastrophic defeat at the Battle of Lake Trasimene, the Sibylline oracle suggested that the so-called Venus of Eryx (Venus Erycina), who belonged to Carthage's Sicilian allies, might be persuaded to change her allegiance. In 217 BC the Romans laid siege to Eryx, captured the goddess' image and brought it to Rome. Once there, this "foreign Venus", who probably combined elements of Aphrodite and a more warlike Carthaginian-Phoenician Astarte, was shorn of her more overtly Carthaginian characteristics and installed as one of Rome's twelve Dii consentes in a temple on the Capitoline Hill.[28][38] As Rome's foundation myth made Venus-Aphrodite the divine ancestor of the Roman people, this may have been understood as a homecoming, rather than arrival. Rome eventually defeated Carthage; thereafter, Venus was firmly connected both to Rome's growing political and military hegemony and its mythical Trojan past.[39] Venus' links with Troy can be traced (via Aphrodite) to the epic, mythic history of the Trojan War, and the Judgement of Paris, in which the Trojan prince Paris chose Aphrodite over Hera and Athena, setting off a train of events that led to war between the Greeks and Trojans, and eventually to Troy's destruction. In Rome's foundation myth, this victorious Venus was the divine mother of the Trojan prince Aeneas, and thus a divine ancestor of the Roman people as a whole, in her form as Venus Genetrix.[40] Another temple to Venus Erycina as a fertility deity[30] was established in a traditionally plebeian district just outside the Colline Gate, beyond the pomerium.[31]

Towards the end of the Roman republic, some leading Romans laid more personal claims to Venus' favour. Sulla adopted Felix as a surname, acknowledging his debt to heaven-sent good fortune and his particular debt to Venus Felix, for his extraordinarily fortunate political and military career.[41] His protégé Pompey competed for Venus' favours. He celebrated his triumph of 54 BC with coins that showed her crowned with triumphal laurels, and built a lavishly appointed theatre and temple complex dedicated to Venus Victrix.[42] Pompey's erstwhile ally and later opponent Julius Caesar went still further, claiming the favours of Venus Victrix in his military success and Venus Genetrix as a personal, divine ancestress – apparently a long-standing family tradition among the Julii. Caesar's heir, Augustus, adopted both claims as evidence of his inherent fitness for office and divine approval of his rule.[43] Augustus' new temple to Mars Ultor, divine father of Rome's legendary founder Romulus, would have underlined the point, with the image of avenging Mars "almost certainly" accompanied by that of his divine consort Venus, and possibly a statue of the deceased and deified Caesar.[44]

The Emperor Hadrian's temple to Venus and the goddess Roma Aeterna (Eternal Rome) made Venus the protective genetrix of the entire Roman state, its people and fortunes.[33]

Epithets of Venus [edit]

Imperial image of Venus suggesting influence from Syria or Palestine, or from the cult of Isis[45]

Like other major Roman deities, Venus was ascribed a number of epithets that referred to her different cult aspects and roles. Her "original powers seem to have been extended largely by the fondness of the Romans for folk-etymology, and by the prevalence of the religious idea nomen-omen which sanctioned any identifications made in this way."[46]

Venus Caelestis (Celestial or Heavenly Venus), used from the 2nd century AD for Venus as an aspect of a syncretised supreme goddess. Venus Caelestis is the earliest known Roman recipient of a taurobolium (a form of bull sacrifice), performed at her shrine in Pozzuoli on 5 October 134. This form of the goddess, and the taurobolium, are associated with the "Syrian Goddess", understood as a late equivalent to Astarte, or the Roman Magna Mater.[47]

Venus Calva ("Venus the bald one"), a possibly legendary form of Venus, attested by post Classical Roman writings which offer several traditions to explain this appearance and epithet. In one, it commemorates the virtuous offer by Roman matrons of their own hair to make bowstrings during a siege of Rome. In another, king Ancus Marcius wife and other Roman women lost their hair during an epidemic; in hope of its restoration, women unaffected by the affliction sacrificed their own hair to Venus.[48]

Venus Cloacina ("Venus the Purifier"); a fusion of Venus with the Etruscan water goddess Cloacina, who had an ancient shrine above the outfall of the Cloaca Maxima, originally a stream, later covered over to function as Rome's main sewer. The shrine contained a statue of Venus, whose rites were probably meant to purify the culvert's polluted waters and noxious airs.[49] Pliny the Elder, remarking Venus as a goddess of union and reconciliation, identifies the shrine with a legendary episode in Rome's earliest history, when the warring Romans and Sabines, carrying branches of myrtle, met there to make peace.[50]

Venus Erycina ("Venus of Eryx"), from Sicily. She was brought to Rome and given temples on the Capitoline Hill and outside the Porta Collina. She embodied "impure" love, and was the patron goddess of prostitutes.[citation needed]

Venus Frutis honoured by all the Latins with a federal cult at the temple named Frutinal in Lavinium.[51] Inscrptions found at Lavinium attest the presence of federal cults without giving precise details.[52]

Venus Felix ("Lucky Venus"), her cult tile at her temple on the Esquiline Hill and at Hadrian's Venus Felix et Roma Aeterna on the Via Sacra. This epithet is also used for a specific sculpture at the Vatican Museums.

Venus Genetrix ("Mother Venus"), as a goddess of motherhood and domesticity, with a festival on September 26, and as ancestress of the Roman people. She was claimed as direct ancestress of the Julian gens in particular; Julius Caesar dedicated a Temple of Venus Genetrix to her in 46 BC. This name has attached to an iconological type of statue of Aphrodite/Venus.

Temple of Venus Genetrix in the Forum of Caesar, Rome. Venus Kallipygos ("Venus with the pretty bottom"), worshiped at Syracuse.

Venus Libertina ("Venus the Freedwoman"), probably arising through the semantic similarity and cultural inks between libertina (as "a free woman") and lubentina (possibly meaning "pleasurable" or "passionate"). Further titles or variants acquired by Venus through the same process, or through orthographic variance, include Libentia, Lubentina, and Lubentini. Venus Libitina links Venus to a patron-goddess of funerals and undertakers, Libitina; a temple was dedicated to Venus Libitina in Libitina's grove on the Esquiline Hill, "hardly later than 300 BC."[53]

Venus Murcia ("Venus of the Myrtle") was an epithet that merged the goddess with the little-known deity Murcia or Murtia. Murcia was associated with Rome's Mons Murcia, and had a shrine in the Circus Maximus. Some sources associate her with the myrtle-tree. Christian writers described her as a goddess of sloth and laziness.[54]

Venus Obsequens ("Graceful Venus" or "Indulgent Venus"), Venus' first attested Roman epithet, and used in the dedication of her first Roman temple, sited somewhere at the foot of the Aventine Hill near the Circus Maximus. The temple was dedicated on August 19 in the late 3rd century BC during the Third Samnite War by Quintus Fabius Maximus Gurges, and played a central role in the Vinalia Rustica. It was supposedly funded by fines imposed on women found guilty of adultery.

Venus Urania ("Heavenly Venus") was an epithet used as the title of a book by Basilius von Ramdohr, a relief by Pompeo Marchesi, and a painting by Christian Griepenkerl. (cf. Aphrodite Urania.)

Venus Verticordia ("Venus the Changer of Hearts"). See Veneralia in this article and main article, Veneralia.

Venus Victrix ("Venus the Victorious") was an aspect of the armed Aphrodite that Greeks had inherited from the East, where the goddess Ishtar "remained a goddess of war, and Venus could bring victory to a Sulla or a Caesar."[55] Pompey, Sulla's protégé, vied with his patron and with Caesar for public recognition as her protégé. In 55 BC he dedicated a temple to her at the top of his theater in the Campus Martius. She had a shrine on the Capitoline Hill, and festivals on August 12 and October 9. A sacrifice was annually dedicated to her on the latter date. In neo-classical art, her epithet as Victrix is often used in the sense of 'Venus Victorious over men's hearts' or in the context of the Judgement of Paris (e.g. Canova's Venus Victrix, a half-nude reclining portrait of Pauline Bonaparte).

Mythology and literature [edit]

A Venus-Aphrodite velificans holding an infant, probably Aeneas,[56] as Anchises and Luna-Selene look on (Roman-era relief from Aphrodisias)

For more details on this topic, see Aphrodite.

Due to her early association with Aphrodite in the interpretatio graeca, it is hard to establish what characteristics the native Italic Venus may have had. In her earliest forms, as a goddess of vegetation and gardens, she was commonly associated with the Greek goddess Aphrodite and the Etruscan deity Turan, borrowing aspects from each.[clarification needed][57]

As with most other gods and goddesses in Roman mythology, the literary concept of Venus is mantled in whole-cloth borrowings from the literary Greek mythology of her counterpart, Aphrodite. In some Latin mythology Cupid was the son of Venus and Mars, the god of war. At other times, or in parallel myths and theologies, Venus was understood to be the consort of Vulcan. Virgil, in compliment to his patron Augustus and the gens Julia, embellished an existing connection between Venus, whom Julius Caesar had adopted as his protectress, and Aeneas. Vergil's Aeneid has Venus lead Aeneas to Latium in her heavenly form, as the morning star, shining brightly before him in the daylight sky.[58]

In the interpretatio romana of the Germanic pantheon during the early centuries AD, Venus became identified with the Germanic goddess Frijjo, giving rise to the loan translation "Friday" for dies Veneris. The historical cognate of the dawn goddess in Germanic tradition, however, would be Ostara.

In art [edit]

Classical art [edit]

Roman and Hellenistic art produced many variations on the goddess, often based on the Praxitlean type Aphrodite of Cnidus. Many female nudes from this period of sculpture whose subjects are unknown are in modern art history conventionally called 'Venus'es, even if they originally may have portrayed a mortal woman rather than operated as a cult statue of the goddess.

Venus de Milo at the Louvre Examples include: Venus de Milo (130 BC) Venus de' Medici Capitoline Venus Esquiline Venus Venus Felix Venus of Arles Venus Anadyomene (also here) Venus, Pan and Eros Venus Genetrix Venus of Capua Venus Kallipygos Venus Pudica

Art in the classical tradition [edit]

Venus became a popular subject of painting and sculpture during the Renaissance period in Europe. As a "classical" figure for whom nudity was her natural state, it was socially acceptable to depict her unclothed. As the goddess of sexuality, a degree of erotic beauty in her presentation was justified, which appealed to many artists and their patrons. Over time, venus came to refer to any artistic depiction in post-classical art of a nude woman, even when there was no indication that the subject was the goddess.

The Birth of Venus, by Sandro Botticelli c. 1485–1486.The Birth of Venus (Botticelli) (c. 1485) Sleeping Venus (c. 1501) Venus of Urbino (1538) Venus with a Mirror (c. 1555) Rokeby Venus Olympia (1863) The Birth of Venus (Cabanel) (1863) The Birth of Venus (Bouguereau) (1879) Venus of Cherchell, Gsell museum in Algeria Venus Victrix, and Venus Italica by Antonio Canova

In the field of prehistoric art, since the discovery in 1908 of the so-called "Venus of Willendorf" small Neolithic sculptures of rounded female forms have been conventionally referred to as Venus figurines. Although the name of the actual deity is not known, the knowing contrast between the obese and fertile cult figures and the classical conception of Venus has raised resistance to the terminology.

Medieval and modern literature and music [edit]

In Wagner's opera Tannhäuser, which draws on the medieval German legend of the knight and poet Tannhäuser, Venus lives beneath the Venusberg mountain. Tannhauser breaks his knightly vows by spending a year there with Venus, under her enchantment. When he emerges, he has to seek penance for his sins.

See also [edit] Love goddess Venus (planet) Venus symbol Hottentot Venus The Golden Bough (myth of Aeneas, son of Venus)

In Western art [edit]

Venus Anadyomene (ca. 1525) by Titian

Venus with a Mirror (ca. 1555) by Titian

Mars Being Disarmed by Venus (1822–25) by Jacques-Louis David

Birth of Venus (1863) by Alexandre Cabanel

Tannhäuser in the Venusberg (1901) by John Collier

Russian Venus (1926) by Boris Kustodiev

References [edit]

1.^ Charlton T. Lewis, Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary, 1879, "Venus", (B, Transf., at perseus.org. It has connections to venerari (to honour, to try to please) and venia (grace, favour) through a possible common root in an Indo-European *wenes-, comparable to Sanskrit vanas- "lust, desire". See Etymonline link (Harper). See also William W.Skeat Etymological Dictionary of the English Language New York, 2011 (first ed. 1882) s. v. venerable, venereal, venial. The Vedic goddess Ushas is linked to Latin "Venus" by the Vedic Sanskrit epithet vanas- "(female) loveliness; longing, desire". Their common Proto-Indo-European root is assumed as *wen- "to desire"). "The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.". Retrieved 2008-02-16. 2.^ Schilling, R., p. 146. 3.^ Eden, p. 458ff. Eden is discussing possible associations between the Venus of Eryx and the brassica species Eruca sativa (known in Europe as Rocket), which the Romans considered an aphrodisiac. 4.^ R. Schilling La religion romaine de Venus depuis les origines jusqu'au temps d' Auguste Paris, 1954, pp. 13–64 5.^ R. Schilling "La relation Venus venia", Latomus, 21, 1962, pp. 3–7 6.^ Linked through an adjectival form *venes-no-: William W. Skeat ibid. s.v. "venom" 7.^ Staples, Ariadne, From Good Goddess to vestal virgins: sex and category in Roman religion, Routledge, 1998, pp. 12, 15-16, 24 - 26, 149 - 150: Varro's theology identifies Venus with water as an aspect of the female principle. To generate life, the watery matrix of the womb requires the virile warmth of fire. To sustain life, water and fire must be balanced; excess of either one, or their mutual antagonism, are unproductive or destructive. 8.^ The origin is unknown, but it might derive from Apru, an Etruscan form of Greek Aphrodite's name.[1] 9.^ Either the Sibylline Books (Valerius Maximus, 8. 15. 12) or the Cumaean Sibyl (Ovid, Fasti, 4. 155 - 62. 10.^ See Staples, Ariadne, From Good Goddess to vestal virgins: sex and category in Roman religion, Routledge, 1998, pp. 105 - 9. 11.^ Carter, Jesse Benedict, "The Cognomina of the Goddess 'Fortuna,'" Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association , Vol. 31, 1900, p. 66. [2] 12.^ Langlands, p. 59, citing Ovid, Fasti, 4. 155 - 62. Romans considered personal ethics or mentality to be functions of the heart. 13.^ Olivier de Cazanove, "Jupiter, Liber et le vin latin", Revue de l'histoire des religions, 1988, Vol. 205, Issue 205-3, pp. 245-265 persee 14.^ Staples, p. 122, citing Ovid, Fasti, 4,863 - 872. 15.^ Vegetable-growers may have been involved in the dedications as a corporate guild: see Eden, P.T., "Venus and the Cabbage" Hermes, 91, (1963) p. 451. 16.^ For associations of kind between Roman deities and their sacrificial victims, see Victima. 17.^ Lipka, Michael, Roman Gods: A Conceptual Approach, BRILL, 2009, p. 42; citing Varro, Lingua Latina, 6. 16; Varro's explicit denial that the festival belongs to Venus implies his awareness of opposite scholarly and commonplace opinion. Lipka offers this apparent contradiction as an example of two Roman cults that offer "complementary functional foci". 18.^ Kaufmann-Heinimann, in Rüpke (ed), 197–8. 19.^ Hersch, Karen K., The Roman Wedding: Ritual and Meaning in Antiquity, Cambridge University Press, 2010, pp. 66 - 67. 20.^ Eden, P.T., Venus and the Cabbage, Hermes, 91, (1963), p. 456, citing Ovid, Fasti 4, 869-870, cf. I35-I38; Ovid describes the rites observed in the early Imperial era, when the temple environs were part of the Gardens of Sallust. 21.^ Eden, pp. 457 - 8, citing Pliny the Elder, Natural History, Book 15, 119 - 121. Murcia had a shrine at the Circus Maximus. 22.^ Versnel, H. S., Inconsistencies in Greek and Roman Religion, Vol. 2, Transition and reversal in myth and ritual, BRILL, 1994, p. 262 [3] 23.^ In the Triumph, the general was drawn in a four-horse chariot before his troops. He wore Jupiter's laurel crown, and was applauded as Jupiter's embodiment for the day – or a king, by any other name. See Mary Beard, The Roman Triumph, The Belknap Press, 2007. 24.^ Brouwer, Henrik H. J., Bona Dea, The Sources and a Description of the Cult, Études préliminaires aux religions orientales dans l'Empire romain, 110, BRILL, 1989: citing Pliny the Elder, Natural History, Book 23, 152 - 158, and Book 15, 125. 25.^ "Bona Dea" means the "The Good Goddess". She was also a "Women's goddess". 26.^ Versnel, H. S., Inconsistencies in Greek and Roman Religion, Vol. 2, Transition and reversal in myth and ritual, BRILL, 1994, p. 262; see also Versnel, H.S., "The Festival for Bona Dea and the Thesmophoria", Greece & Rome, Second Series, 39, 1, (Apr., 1992), p. 44, citing Plutarch, Quaestiones Romanae, 20. For the total exclusion of myrtle (and therefore Venus) at Bona Dea's rites, see Bona Dea article. 27.^ Eden, p. 456. 28.^ a b Beard et al, Vol 1., pp. 80, 83: see also Livy Ab Urbe Condita 23.31. 29.^ Orlin, in Rüpke (ed), p. 62. 30.^ a b Lipka, Michael, Roman Gods: A Conceptual Approach, BRILL, 2009, pp. 72 3: Lipka gives a foundation date of 181 BC for Venus' Colline temple. 31.^ a b Orlin, Eric M., "Foreign Cults in Republican Rome: Rethinking the Pomerial Rule", Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome, Vol. 47 (2002), pp. 4, 8, 14. 32.^ Beard, 2007, pp. 22 - 23. 33.^ a b See James Grout, Encyclopedia Romana, "Temple of Venus and Rome," online. See also Beard et al, Vol. 1, pp. 257 - 8, 260. 34.^ Immediately after these remarks, Vitruvius prescribes the best positioning for temples to Venus' two divine consorts, Vulcan and Mars. Vulcan's should be outside the city, to reduce the dangers of fire, which is his element; Mars' too should be outside the city, so that "no armed frays may disturb the peace of the citizens, and that this divinity may, moreover, be ready to preserve them from their enemies and the perils of war." Book 1, 7,1. 35.^ The widely spaced, open style preferred by Vitruvius is eustylos. The densely pillared style he criticises is pycnostylos. Book 3, 1, 5. 36.^ Eden, p. 456. 37.^ Schilling, R. La Religion romaine de Venus, BEFAR, Paris, 1954, p.87, suggests that Venus began as an abstraction of personal qualities, later assuming Aphrodite's attributes. 38.^ Orlin, in Rüpke (ed), p. 62. 39.^ The Punic Wars saw many similar introductions of cult (see Beard et al, Vol. 1, p. 80), including the Phrygian cult to Magna Mater, who also had mythical links to Troy. 40.^ Mary Beard, The Roman Triumph, The Belknap Press, 2007, p. 23. 41.^ Plutarch's original Greek translates this adopted surname, Felix, as Epaphroditus (Aphrodite's beloved); see Plutarch, Sulla 19.9. 42.^ Beard, 2007, pp. 22 - 23. 43.^ Orlin, in Rüpke (ed), pp. 67 - 69: "At the battle of Pharsalus, Caesar also vowed a temple, in best republican fashion, to Venus Victrix, almost as if he were summoning Pompey’s protectress to his side in the manner of an evocatio." Three years after Pompey's defeat at the battle, Caesar dedicated his new Roman Forum, complete with a temple to his ancestor Venus Genetrix, "apparently in fulﬁllment of the vow". The goddess helped provide a divine aura for her descendant, preparing the way for Caesar's own cult as a divus and the formal institution of the Roman Imperial cult. 44.^ Beard et al., Vol 1, pp. 199 - 200. 45.^ Description from Walters Art Museum 46.^ See Eden, p. 457. For further exposition of nomen-omen (or nomen est omen see Del Bello, Davide, Forgotten paths: etymology and the allegorical mindset, The Catholic University of America Press, 2007, p.52 ff. [4] 47.^ Turcan, p. 141 - 143. 48.^ R. Schilling La religion romaine de Venus depuis les origines jusqu'au temps d'August Paris, 1954, pp. 83–89: "L'origine probable du cult de Venus". Ashby (1929) finds the existence of a temple to Venus Calva "very doubtful"; see Samuel Ball Platner (completed and revised by Thomas Ashby), A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome, London, Oxford University Press, 1929, p551.[5] 49.^ Eden, p. 457, citing Pliny the Elder, Natural History, Book 15, 119 - 121. 50.^ Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 15, 119, cited in Wagenvoort, p. 180. 51.^ Paulus-Festus s. v. p. 80 L: Frutinal templum Veneris Fruti. Strabo V 3, 5: "At the midway between Ostia and Antium lies Lavinium that has a sanctuary of Aphrodite common to all Latin nations, but which is under the care of the Ardeans, who have entrusted the task to intendents". 52.^ CIL X 797: "Sp. Turrianus Proculus Gellianus... pater patratus...Lavinium sacrorum principiorum p(opuli) R(omani) Quirt(ium) nominisque Latini qui apud Laurentis coluntur". Cited in B. Liou-Gilles "Naissance de la ligue latine. Mythe et culte de fondation" in Revue belge de philologie et d'histoire 74 1996 1 p.85. 53.^ See Eden, p. 457. Varro rationalises the connections as "lubendo libido, libidinosus ac Venus Libentina et Libitina" (Lingua Latina, 6, 47). 54.^ Augustine, De civitate Dei, IV. 16; Arnobius, Adversus Nationes, IV. 9. 55.^ Thus Walter Burkert, in Homo Necans (1972) 1983:80, noting C. Koch on "Venus Victrix" in Realencyclopädie der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft, 8 A860-64. 56.^ Sometimes interpreted as Eros-Cupid, as a symbol of the sexual union between the goddess and Anchises, but perhaps alluding also the scene in the Aeneid when Dido holds Cupid disguised as Ascanius in her lap as she falls in love with Aeneas. 57.^ "Questia.com". Questia.com. Retrieved 2012-06-21. 58.^ Vergil, Aeneid, Book and line required

Sources [edit] Beard, M., Price, S., North, J., Religions of Rome: Volume 1, a History, illustrated, Cambridge University Press, 1998. Champeaux, J. (1987). Fortuna. Recherches sur le culte de la Fortuna à Rome et dans le monde romain des origines à la mort de César. II. Les Transformations de Fortuna sous le République. Rome: Ecole Française de Rome. (pp. 378–395 Eden, P.T., "Venus and the Cabbage," Hermes, 91, (1963), pp. 448–459. Hammond, N.G.L. and Scullard, H.H. (eds.) (1970). The Oxford Classical Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (p. 113) Langlands, Rebecca, Sexual morality in ancient Rome, Cambridge University Press, 2006. ISBN 978-0-521-85943-1 [6] Lloyd-Morgan, G. (1986). "Roman Venus: public worship and private rites." In M. Henig and A. King (eds.), Pagan Gods and Shrines of the Roman Empire (pp. 179–188). Oxford: Oxford Committee for Archaeology Monograph 8. Nash, E. (1962). Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Rome Volume 1. London: A. Zwemmer Ltd. (pp. 272–263, 424) Richardson, L. (1992). A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press. (pp. 92, 165–167, 408–409, 411) ISBN 0-8018-4300-6 Room, A. (1983). Room's Classical Dictionary. London and Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul. (pp. 319–322) Rüpke, Jörg (Editor), A Companion to Roman Religion, Wiley-Blackwell, 2007. ISBN 978-1-4051-2943-5 Schilling, R. (1982) (2nd ed.). La Religion Romaine de Vénus depuis les origines jusqu'au temps d'Auguste. Paris: Editions E. de Boccard. Schilling, R., in Bonnefoy, Y., and Doniger, W. (Editors), Roman and European Mythologies, (English translation), University of Chicago Press, 1991. pp. 146. [7] Scullard, H.H. (1981). Festivals and Ceremonies of the Roman Republic. London: Thames and Hudson. (pp. 97, 107) Simon, E. (1990). Die Götter der Römer. Munich: Hirmer Verlag. (pp. 213–228). Staples, Ariadne, From Good Goddess to vestal virgins: sex and category in Roman religion, Routledge, 1998. Turcan, Robert, The cults of the Roman Empire, Blackwell, 2001. Wagenvoort, Hendrik, "The Origins of the goddess Venus" (first published as "De deae Veneris origine", Mnemnosyne, Series IV, 17, 1964, pp. 47 – 77) in Pietas: selected studies in Roman religion, Brill, 1980. Weinstock, S. (1971). Divus Julius. Oxford; Clarendon Press. (pp. 80–90) Gerd Scherm, Brigitte Tast Astarte und Venus. Eine foto-lyrische Annäherung (1996), ISBN 3-88842-603-0

External links [edit]

Wikisource has the text of the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology's article about Venus.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Venus (dea)

Britannica Online Encyclopedia The Roman goddess Venus - highlights at The British Museum Warburg Institute Iconographic Database (ca 2,300 images of Venus) 'Venus Chiding Cupid for Learning to Cast Accounts' by Sir Joshua Reynolds at the Lady Lever Art Gallery

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