The Eternal Woman: The Timeless Meaning of the Feminine

In 1934, Gertrud von le Fort wrote a great book called The Eternal Woman that explains what it means to be a woman. It's only 128 pages long, and it's fairly easy to understand. I think it's a good read for anyone who liked Carrie Gress' book, The End of Woman and who would like to dive deeper in the "Timeless Meaning of the Feminine."

Here are some of the book's most striking passages... 

Woman & The Veil

"It is likewise the symbol of womanhood, and all great forms of woman's life show her as a figure veiled. This makes it clear why the greatest mysteries of Christianity entered the world of creation not through the man, but by way of the woman." (page 10)

"It is precisely the veil that is the evidence of every great womanly mission.." (page 12)

"We have said that all the great forms of woman's life show her as concealed. The bride, the widow, the nun are the bearers of the same symbol. The outer gesture is never without meaning; for, as it issues from a thing, just so does it represent that very thing. From this point of view certain fashions become monstrous traitors; in fact, they contribute to the dismantling of woman in the actual sense of the word. To unveil her means to destroy her mystery." (page 16)

Womanhood = Surrender

"Wheresoever woman is most profoundly herself, she is not as herself but as surrendered." (page 11)

"The fiat of the Virgin is therefore the revelation of the religious quality in its essence. Since, as an act of surrender, it is at the same time an expression of essential womanliness, the latter becomes the manifestation of the religious concept fundamental to the human being." (page 9)

"(T)he moment when the stronger power no longer desires surrender but seeks self-glorification, a catastrophe is bound to ensue." (page 13)

"If the sign of the woman is, 'Be it done unto me,; which means the readiness to conceive or, when expressed religiously, the will to be blessed, then there is always misery when the woman no longer wills to concieve, no longer desires to be blessed." (page 15)

"Surrender to God is the only absolute power that the creature possess." (page 18)

The Importance of Women

"(T)he unpretentious is pre-eminently proper to woman, which means all that belongs to the domain of love, of goodness, of compassion, everything that has to do with care and protection, the hidden, the betrayed things of the earth." (page 12)

"(N)ations and countries, if they are to prosper, need good mothers..." (page 17)

"(M)an spends his strength in how own performance, while woman does not spend but transmits it. Man spends and exhausts himself in his work and in giving his talent gives himself with it, while woman gives even the talent away to the coming generation. Her endowment appears as equal to that of the man, but it is not for the woman herself; it is for the generation." (page 21) 

"To be a mother, to feel maternally, means to turn especially to the helpless, to incline lovingly and helpfully to every small and weak thing upon the earth," (page 78)

It is the maternal woman, overwhelmed as she is by the needs of every day, who is the great conqueror of the every day. Daily she controls it anew by making it bearable, and her victory is greatest when least observed." (page 80)

"If we said before that physical motherhood is but the first breaking forth of the mother's powers, their most universal, most appealing aspect, this doe snot mean that a woman can attain to motherhood in this universal sense only through her own child. It is a remnant of the period of individualism to believe that everyone must experience everything." (page 85)

"There is no such thing as a woman's right to a child; there is only the right of the child to a mother." (page 86)

"The past epoch required a profession for the unmarried woman as a substitute for motherhood. The future, inspired y the concept of spiritual maternity, will call for it, but from the fulsome motherliness that is also in the single woman. The professions of women will consequently not be the substitute for a failing motherhood, but rather the working out of the never failing motherliness that is in every genuine woman.....
Although in humbler garb than that of queen, the woman in politics is in spirit a mother to her people. Only on this condition can her presence there be approved...." (page 89-90)

"(T)here is nothing that contributes so effectively to the downfall of culture as the decline of woman's spiritual motherhood. In this event the protectress of culture has become its squanderer." (page 90)

Virginity / Unmarried Women

"That our time avoids coming to terms with (the unmarried woman) is understandable. It entertains the naïve conviction that the significance of the unmarried woman comes to the fore in the bride. From a positive standpoint the age sees her only as girlish expectancy; negatively, she denotes the disappointed old maid, or what is worse, the contented bachelor girl. Consequently our period sees the unmarried woman only as as condition or as something tragic.....
The one whom we negatively call the unmarried woman is in a positive sense the virgin. Obviously she is not the only aspect of the unmarried woman, she is her most natural expression. In other times, a virgin held a definite position or dignity. Not only does Christianity approve of her, but many the values that it emphasizes have been anticipated also in pre-Christian times. Names of mountains and or constellations proclaim the virgin....
To borrow Theodore Haecker's beautiful expression, which he applied to the classical ages, the pagan period of early Germanic history, in its belief in the saving power of a virgin, became "like an advent" preparing the way for the Christian faith in Mary....
Thus from dogma, history, saga, and art, the idea of virginity emerges, not as a condition or a tragedy, but as a value and a power." (pages 23-25)

"The liturgy always places the virgin beside the martyr, who bears witness to the absolute value of the soul." (page 26)

"To the woman who does not recognize in her virginity a value that has its relationship to God, the unmarried state and childlessness are really a profound tragedy. Both to marriage and to children, woman is spiritually and physically more intimately disposed than man, and to be deprived of them can lead her to regard her own existence as utterly futile. However, the inner meaning of her unmarried state and her childlessness remains unimpaired by this apparent uselessness. In fact, by an extreme sharpening of the concept, it is perhaps exactly at this point that it becomes decidedly intensified; for it is perhaps only an existence seemingly the most worthless that can most fully establish the final value of a person as such....
In an similar way the low voice of the solitary woman, whose life in the world has remained unfulfilled, echoes in sisterly fashion the avowal of fulfillment on the part of the spouse of Christ. It is only in the complete release from every visible achievement that we have a glimmer of the ultimate, the transcendental meaning of the person." (page 29)

 

Reading such beautiful Catholic content that illuminates the timeless value of womanhood, obscured by communism and individualism, is truly enlightening. Books like The Eternal Woman and The End of Woman are essential for reclaiming true womanhood and manhood!