In our own culture she continues to be an object of fascination. The fertile aspect of the feminine, in all its power, has been formative for human culture. As I reflected on why this is so, it came to me that we obsess on the feminine as life principle because we cannot deal with its opposite. We are a society that fears death. And in this, we are no different from any society or culture that has preceded us.
Death continues to be a problem.
That is why, in our society, there are relatively few representations of older men and women, compared with the endless portrayal of the nubile female. To represent what is older is to confront us with the diminution of our vital forces and with our mortality. It is to remind us of the impermanence of all that is, including our physical life. To say the least that makes us uncomfortable. So we obsess on the feminine as life principle hoping, like those before us, that by doing so we will somehow participate in the generative powers of the feminine and thereby at least retard the aging process.