Virgin vs. Virtue

I think the Virgin Mary story is a good one, just like the stork. But why does Mary have to be a virgin?
What does it mean to be a virgin? I'm not talking about literally that you haven't had sexual intercourse. Even with the sex thing there are a ton of gray areas. Anal sex, oral sex, are sorts of other things that are considered by some people to be breaking virginity and by others to not be breaking virginity. But all that seems to be getting away from something else. Like when you say virgin, you don't even mean virgin at all.
Furthermore I'm pretty sure that even in the stork-like version of the story Mary should have sex with Joseph after she is married. But maybe not. Historically Jesus had brothers, but the Catholic Church still says he didn't even though many priests still learn the historical fact that he did.  At Groton I was told that Virgin really meant Virgin womb. But I think that's just trying to make your story fit science. Sometimes fairy tales and science don't mix. You don't necessarily have to explain everything scientifically for it to be a good story. Star Trek was full of errors and fantasy  and fairy tales but Scientists and Atheists were often still fans.

So what is implied by "Virgin." I think that another V word should apply and that is Virtue.

Mary has to be Virtuous to be worthy of worship. Most of the other women in the Bible are prostitutes.. all four of them. And then there's Eve who gets blamed for everything. Then if you want to go down the Jewish Mysticism path there is Lilith and all that. But none of these women are worshiped. Mary is worshiped. Call her a goddess and you'll get into trouble with the Church, but she is, and when you look at how Chinese people define god or goddess, they are just powerful or virtuous people.

Guan Yin is a lot like Mary, originating from an Egyptian deity (that happened to be be male but Effeminate) Chinese and Vietnamese usually fix this issue by having other incarnations of Guan Yin that were Buddhist nuns or other such stories. In fact, like Mary, Guan Yin is a plethora of female deities in that there are different Guan Yin statues for different purposes, fertility, virtue, other stuff. But Guan Yin herself never has sex and also never gives birth, which is weird if you are buying the statue for fertility, how does that work?

If you think about it Virgin Mary is pretty fertile. She's so fertile that she doesn't even need to have sex and she gives birth.

Of course a lot of the pagan goddesses that  put into Mary worship when those cultures were converted were not Virgins. Maybe not even Virtuous by today's standards but they were worthy of worship.

I once read that China was once a Matriarchy back in the day like before civilization. Back then apparently they didn't understand the relationship between sexual intercourse and pregnancy. It was thought that all pregnancy was simply spontaneous and miraculous. But obviously everyone was having sex. So in a way, in this culture, everyone was like a Virgin, since having sex had nothing bad tied to it, and in a way, everyone was a Virgin Mary. So every Woman was worthy of worship hence a Matriarchy. Then someone decided that sperm was the seed and the woman the vessel and that belief lasted a long time and so did/does patriarchy. Of course Scientifically we know that the genes are from an egg and a sperm, and we've known that for a long time, but the world is still more run by men than by women, especially China, no matter what the law, or what Mao or whatever says. It's still a Patriarchy and most families in the U.S. (though not by as big a margin anymore) are still Patriarchies.

So back to China, Women became property instead of goddesses and Europe isn't all that different and basically men want their territory to not be marked by other men hence Virginity being so important. Scientifically it is important not to spread disease, but the Virginity thing wasn't so much about that I think in during times like the Plague, where you didn't have to have sex to catch  a fatal disease quite easily.

Anyway I do have a point to all this, which is the Mary story would do well to have an adolescent and an adult version that does not include virginity. But  I will get to that tomorrow.