Madonna/Whore: The Myth of the Two Marys

Since time immemorial women have been cast into two opposite categories – either the 'Madonna', respectable wife, mother, daughter, sister, or the off-limits mistress, vamp, or common whore. This book traces the so-called Madonna/whore syndrome from its roots in the Judeo-Christian tradition to the present day. Drawing on works of art, literature, and the theater, we find that every age recreates the two principle feminine archetypes in its own image. As mirror images of the ways in which society views and treats women, they remain deeply buried within our collective unconscious, shaping men's perceptions of women and women's perception of self.

Neither a feminist nor a religious polemic per se, this book considers several especially timely issues. Jesus' strikingly liberal stance on women, their active role in the Jesus movement and early Church pertains to the current debates on the ordination of women. Similarly, the discussion of Jesus' position on sexuality, marriage, celibacy is especially pertinent to the critical debate about celibacy and the priesthood today. Ultimately , however, by stripping away layers of mythology and restoring the 'two Marys' to their original vital roles – wife, mother, lover, creator, nurturer, scholar, teacher – they become complementary rather than separate categories, a holistic view not only of woman, but of our universal and fundamental humanity.

As a social and cultural historian with special interests in New and Old Testament, Judaism in the first century C.E, and the historical Jesus, Doris Tishkoff is uniquely qualified for a study that transcends the boundaries of specialization. In addition to a Ph.D. in history from Michigan State University, Dr. Tishkoff studied Old Testament at the Hebrew Union Seminary in Los Angeles and connections between first century Judaism and Christianity with Nahum Glatzer of Brandeis University, and also taught Jewish history at Leo Baeck Temple in Los Angeles. In the field of Euro­pean history she has taught at Oregon Institute of Technology, the University of Oregon, and Franklin Pierce College. Currently she teaches in the History Department at Quinnipiac University in  Hamden, Connecticut. Her research and writing includes works on the music and culture of the eighteenth century, the history of sexuality, the history of religion, and women''s studies. Known for her lively lecture style, Dr. Tishkoff is at home with both academic and lay audiences.

Nice girls and bad girls, respectable wives and available sluts; the split is as old as the institution of marriage, for that's where it began. From time immemorial marriage had nothing to do with love, and everything to do with money, property, family. A virgin bride insured the integrity of the family, a sexually experienced woman threatened it and might bring with her a trail of dishonor as well. Hence the dichotomy - potential wives conditioned to be asexual, women of the lower classes exploited as sex objects. Yet the formula is not that simple, for sexuality is a powerful and mysterious force that tends to make its own rules. Indeed, when female sexuality is perceived as too powerful its flip side can be a deep and abiding fear that manifests itself in a hatred for its perpetrator, the proverbial whore, and for women in general.

Today such things may seem irrelevant, yet they continue to inhabit our collective unconscious. A case in point would be John F. Kennedy, a compulsive womanizer who, before marriage, confessed to a friend that, having had his fill of 'sexually traveled' women, he was searching for a virgin bride. The wife he found became a legend for her beauty and elegance, yet her personal life was marred by pain caused by the dark obsession with 'forbidden fruits' that continued to haunt Kennedy until his death. More recently there is the recurring phenomenon of celebrity sex scandals - fresh faced actor Hugh Grant, arrested for having sex with a prostitute in a parked car in Los Angeles, call-girl Sherry Rowlands blowing the whistle on presidential advisor, Richard Morris, on the eve of the Democratic National Convention, and, of course, the mother of them all , the Clinton / Lewinsky scandal.

As to women, the inherent contradiction still pertains. A teen-aged girl interviewed recently by NPR put it bluntly: "In High School you have only two choices. You're either a prude or a whore." Writer Dalma Heyn claims that a startlingly high proportion of women today believe that, unlike men, 'real' women cannot have sex without love, the latter being the mark of "... tramps - sluts - easy (women with) loose morals." Or as that proper Victorian, Mrs. E.B. Duffey, put it in 1876, 'good' women "... do not lust for lust's sake ... Passion must come to them accompanied - with love - or they are quickly disgusted." Those who violate that code deserve what they get, " ... bad names or bad treatment." . How true, when one thinks of those sexually aggressive monstrosities, Glen Close in Fatal Attraction and Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct!

Still, one might ask, what does all that have to do with the religious paradigm of the 'Two Marys' - the Virgin / Mother and the Magdalen / Whore ? To that I would answer, everything, for they remain the most pervasive icons of femininity in western culture, replete with an entire body of myth, fantasy, fiction and delusion about the nature of woman. They inhabit our minds and our souls, they burrow deeply into our subconscious to influence our notion of femininity and sexuality regardless of our religious beliefs.

Precisely because they are religious figures we either negate them or freeze them into rigid stereotypes that obscure their true origins. Yet their respective myths derive from beliefs about women even more ancient than Christianity, while even today they make manifest the catch 22 of Christianity - the conflict between erotic and spiritual love that continues to haunt and divide the Church. To seek them out in their original form demands that we examine the origins of Christianity and Jesus' own stance on women and sexuality, provocative and especially timely questions to which the answers lie buried beneath centuries of misunderstanding and religious dogma..

In actual fact, Jesus' position on women was sharply radical for the time - in his sympathy, tolerance for, and closeness to women of every station, even 'sinners', he gave his enemies fuel for censure of his unorthodoxies. This book , however, is not meant to be either a religious or a feminist polemic. Ultimately, it is concerned with the way that men and women, both, understand and love one another. Through a better understanding of the origins and evolution of a dichotomy that affects both sexes, it seeks to offer a healthy alternative - an equality of partnership between men and women more akin to that advocated by Jesus himself.