man’s attentions, the Demeter woman feels as if the myth itself has
been reenacted. Unexpectedly, her Persephone has been “abducted
by Hades,” which is a devastating loss.
RELATIONSHIPS WITH MEN
A Demeter woman attracts men who feel an affinity for maternal
women. A true-to-type Demeter woman does not do the choosing.
She responds to a man’s need for her and may even be with a man
because she feels sorry for him. Demeter women don’t have high
expectations of men. More often they feel that “men are just little
boys.”
A common type of couple where the woman is Demeter fits the
pattern of Great Mother mated to a son-lover. This archetypal
mother-son relationship does not refer to a difference in chronolo-
gical years, although the man may be younger. Usually he is a talen-
ted, sensitive man who feels unappreciated or misunderstood by
others who do not value his specialness (as she does) and who won’t
overlook his irresponsibility (as she does). He is an immature, self-
absorbed boy with a sense of specialness, more than he is a man.
She agrees with his self-assessment and repeatedly overlooks beha-
vior toward her that others consider selfish and thoughtless.
As far as she is concerned, the world is unkind to him. It should
make exceptions for him, as she does. His thoughtlessness often
hurts and angers her—but if he then tells her how much he appreci-
ates her, or how she’s the only person in his life that really cares
about him, all is again forgiven.
Like a mother of a handsome son, who wonders how she could
have given birth to such a young god, the Demeter woman playing
Great Mother to his son-lover role may also be in awe of his appear-
ance (or his talent). She may say, as one Demeter woman said to me,
“He looked to me like Michelangelo’s statue of David. I was happy
taking care of him. I spoiled him rotten.” She said this with pride
rather than bitterness.
A Demeter woman’s maternal qualities and her difficulties in
saying no make her vulnerable to being used by a sociopath, another
type of man often found in relationships with Demeter women. The
Demeter-sociopath relationship may superficially resemble a Great
Mother-son-lover relationship—
Goddesses in Everywoman