It's just semantics, Ellenpoly. You could as well call the Father the Mother if you so desired, and in India they do indeed speak of the Divine Mother. So the trinity can express as Mother, Daughter and Holy Spirit if one chooses to use those words. In a matriarchy, that's the way it would be seen.

By the way, I think the "virginity" of Mary, mother of Jesus, that is spoken of in the New Testament can be interpreted in this fashion: it refers to a spiritual condition, not a physical one. It's a metaphor for spiritual purity. The common people, again, took it literally as meaning physical virginity (which doesn't matter here nor there...it's the inner spiritual condition of a human that matters, not the physical aspects).

Mary was not the first "virgin" in ancient religious tales to give birth to a son. It was already a rather popular notion, and it is a metaphor for something spiritual.

- LH