Interesting info on the significance of virgin births throughout history. Stolen from the internet so it must be true:
Virginity, perhaps on account of its rarity in those days among women of a marriageable age, had always a halo of sanctity cast over it by barbaric and semi-civilized tribes; and even in civilized Rome itself the Vestal Virgins were looked upon as peculiarly sacred.
This reverence for virginity seems to have sometimes been contemporaneous with the institution of religious prostitution on a large scale. There is, indeed, no reason why this should not have been the case, incongruous though it seems to us, as such religious prostitution was looked upon very differently from the way in which it would now be regarded.
In origin virginity was an institution designed to bring fertility to the fields (by sympathetic magic). The sacrifice of chastity in the service of the goddess was an act of devotion, and not an act of licentiousness.
When studying these customs we must remember that we are dealing with men and women brought up in an entirely different psychological climate from our own. A veneration for chastity was not incompatible with periodic orgies, nor with places set aside for sacred prostitution, asceticism and such prostitution being regarded as alternative ways of making a sacrifice for the public good.
It is not possible here to enter at length into the origin and history of the curious veneration for virginity in ancient times but it is of interest to note that the belief that some occult power was attached to this state of unblemished purity survived even up to the Middle Ages of our era.
For example, it was thought that virgins were peculiarly efficient as bait for Unicorns. The Unicorn, or rather his congener, the Monoceros-for it is of him that our present authority writes-was evidently a fastidious beast; only a virgin could attract him. On finding one tied up in the forest as a lure he was wont to kiss her, and then to fall asleep on her breast. Whereupon the brave hunter came up and slew him in his sleep. If the young woman was not really a virgin, the Monoceros immediately killed her, and disappeared before the hunter arrived.
This method of hunting the Monoceros is described in the "Bestiary" of Philip de Thaun, written in the twelfth century, and is but one of the many strange facts alleged by authors of that period in support of the theory that virginity had special virtues when dealings were had with animals, with demons, and with human beings.
To the Vestal Virgins in Rome were attributed the faculty of prophesying and many sacred virtues. All virgins were immune from death at the hand of the executioner, and the Vestals enjoyed many other privileges so long as they preserved their chastity.
The same idea is found in the histories of miraculous virgins that are so numerous in the mythologies of Asia. Such, for example, was the Chinese legend that tells how, when there was but one man with one woman upon earth, the woman refused to sacrifice her virginity even in order to people the globe; and the gods, honouring her purity, granted that she should conceive beneath the gaze of her lover's eyes, and a virgin-mother became the parent of humanity.
The Winter Solstice (around December 25) throughout history has been popular for Virgin Births probably due with its tie-in to the return of the sun and increasing fertility of the earth.
Other gods, kings and conquerors born to a virgin mother include:
Assyrian and Babylonian religions: Tammuz, Zoroaster, Tukulti-Ninurta II, Ashurbanipal
Egyptian Religions: Pharaoh Amenkept III by Mut-emm-ua. Ra god of the sun
Hinduism: Krishna, Karna
Greco-Roman religions: Alexander the Great, Zethus and Amphion by Antiope, Auge, Gionysus Melanippe, Mithras by a rock, Romulus by Rea Sivia
Chinese tradition: Lao Tzu, Genghis Khan
Buddhism: Gautama Buddha by Maya
Christianity: Jesus by Mary
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