When it comes to helping her children cope with social nuances
or competitive situations, however, she is not much use. The same
is true for helping with ambitions or career development.
MIDDLE YEARS
By midlife, the course of a Hestia woman’s life often seems set. If
she married, she is a homemaker who is content in this role. If she
didn’t marry, she may have the aura of “spinster” or “old maid”
because she doesn’t mind her single status and isn’t out to catch a
man. If she’s working in an office, or living in a convent or ashram,
she’s a “fixture” there, who quietly does her part.
Midlife may be the time that a Hestia woman formally enters a
convent or ashram, changes her name, and devotes her life to a
particular spiritual path. For her it is a natural transition, a deepening
commitment to a devotion already practiced. For relatives, the de-
cision may be totally unexpected, because quiet Hestia never
broadcasted the importance of this aspect of her life to them.
LATER YEARS
There is always something “old and wise” about a Hestia woman,
she has the capacity to grow old gracefully. She is well suited to live
alone, and she may have done so all her life. In the role of the arche-
typal spinster aunt, she may be called on by other family members
to help out when needed.
The two major emotional crises that face traditional women are
the empty nest and widowhood. But although most Hestia women
are wives and mothers, they do not have a deep need to be in either
role. Consequently, the loss of these roles does not result in depres-
sion for Hestia, as it might for Demeter or Hera women. Coping
with the outer world is what is difficult for Hestia women. If they
become “displaced homemakers” through divorce or widowhood,
and are not provided for economically, they are usually ill prepared
by nature and by experience to go out and be successful in the world.
Thus they may join the ranks of the genteel poor.
Hestia: I Goddess of the Hearth and Temple, Wise Woman and