It’s a well-recognized triad, the pattern of most women’s lives. The Virgin at a certain point becomes a Mother, and eventually a wise woman, a Crone.But there are some women who bypass the Mother phase and go straight from being a Virgin to being a Crone. This is the kind of woman who, as her younger years pass, reaches an age when she realizes that she is unlikely to marry or, perhaps almost unaware, has chosen not to. She has no children. The woman I’m focusing on lives alone, or virtually alone, so that she has considerable autonomy and solitude. She doesn’t fit many of the conditions usually taken to define women’s lives. She has a different centre and different priorities.The Virgin-Mother-Crone triad assumes that the experience of being a Mother is essential to the Crone’s wisdom: it’s the only kind of experience that’s even considered. But what kind of Crone does a woman become who has never been a Mother? What kind of person is the middle-aged woman who is not a Mother but is definitely on the way to Cronehood?
