The Eternal Woman: The Timeless Meaning of the Feminine

When The Eternal Woman was originally published in Germany, Europe was a battleground for modern ideas that would claim millions of lives via conflict and genocide. Denying the Creator, who created male and female, Nazism and Communism could only fail to appreciate the genuine significance of the feminine and degrade women to mere state instruments. Atheism, in any form, leads to the captivity of women in the name of liberating her from the so-called tyranny of Christianity.

Gertrud von le Fort understood the battle on female, and thus on motherhood, which usually coincided with an attack on the Catholic Church's faith, which she adopted at the age of 50 in 1926. In The Eternal Woman, she counters the modern assault on the feminine not with polemical argument but with perhaps the most beautiful meditation on womanhood ever written.

Using Mary, Virgin and Mother, as her model, von le Fort considers the relevance of a woman's spiritual and bodily receptivity, as well as her role in both the creation and redemption of human beings. Mary's fiat to God is the means to salvation since it is inexorably interwoven with Jesus' son's obedience to death. Mary's acceptance of her maternity, like the Son's acceptance of the Cross, represents for all mankind the self-surrender to the Creator required of every human soul. Since any woman's acceptance of motherhood is likewise a yes to God, when womanhood and motherhood are properly understood and appreciated, the nature of the soul's relationship to God is revealed.