Triple Goddess Meme - Bridget, Me & Mary Jones.

As Imbolc has just passed, many Celts out there will probably have been thinking about Bridget: Goddess of the Hearth, and attempting to light a fire in the snow.
Doing a little research with a friend, I was pleased to stumble upon a site by Mary Jones, and therein some writing on the Neo-pagan concept of the Triple Goddess - Maiden, Mother, Crone format. (MMC)

Bridget is the classic Celtic triple Goddess, but how does Poetess, Smith and Medical skillsfit into these ages of womanhood...? ..
Would Bride the Poet would be the Muse (maiden), the Smith (mother creator) and the Medical skills or herbalist knowledge (experienced Crone) ? All at once, or as and when ?
Well may be they don't connect...and were never meant to be taken rigidly...personally Im feeling a bit Cronish of late, so at the very least the linear time aspect should be removed from thoughts about this model.


MMC is a neat concept, but also quite restrictive - and Mary Jones sums up why on her well researched website : http://www.maryjones.us/jce/triplegoddess.html

"Personally, I have problems with the "maiden-mother-crone" schema. 

For one, it presumes that women must take on certain roles--that a woman must be a mother, for example. Even if one interprets the word as "mature" or "working", the word is still carries connotations and denotations--mother. 

Whether they realize it or not, the followers of this concept are simply regurgitating the same gender roles which we've been taught for thousands of years. 

And while yes, women usually do become mothers, there is a sense in this schema that one must become a mother, one must become a crone. Conscious or not, it doesn't leave much room for someone who refuses to have children.

Also, there are attributes ascribed to these roles which indicate that they--the attributes--are then lacking in the other figures: the Crone is Wise (but the Mother isn't?), the Maiden is a Muse (but no one else is?), the Mother is a creator (but no one else can create?). 

The reason for this, of course, goes back to the misogyny of Graves' The White Goddess, discussed elsewhere, as well as Gerald Gardner's own ideas. Again, what matters is not whether the follower consciously accepts these ideas; subconsciously, he or she often unconsciously begins to accept these ideas.

Finally, the idea of Trinity--Christian, Hindu or otherwise--is not derived from the Triple Goddess. 

As I and others have shown, the idea of triplet deities is not limited to one sex. 

It is simply the highest number grouping, the highest pattern, that the mind will accept before dividing objects into a new group. 

We don't usually see quadruple gods because our mind divides the number four into two groups of two. Five is divided into groups of three and two, six into three and three (or two, two, and two), etc. The preponderance of the number 3 is found not only in religion or literature, but is everywhere. "

Thanks Mary !