Cinxia is an aspect of Juno Who is concerned with the rituals of marriage, specifically loosening the bride’s belt or girdle in preparation for the marriage bed. The tightly bound belt was symbolic of a woman’s virginity.

Juno is, among other things, the Goddess of Marriage of the ancient Romans; Juno Cinxia was that aspect of Her Who presided over untying the bridal knot, i.e, the first sexual experience of the bride, who was expected to be a virgin; I assume the requirements for the groom were not as stringent, because they never are. The name Cinxia is derived from cingulum meaning ‘belt, girdle, sash’ or even ‘dog collar’; the modern English word cinch (used of tightening a belt) is related.

The traditional dress of a bride in Roman times consisted of a long tunic with embroidered (or woven) bands and purple fringe, which was tied on the hips with a belt, and worn with a saffron or flame-colored veil. Purple and saffron were both very expensive dyes. The former, also called Tyrian purple, was made from the secretions of the murex, a sea snail, using an elaborate (and stinky) process, while the latter was made from the fragrant stamens of an autumn crocus. Murex purple and saffron have been paired since at least Phoenician times, when the Goddess Anat is said to have put on clothing in those colors in ritual preparation for battle. They were also traditionally used for the peplos of Athena presented to the Goddess at Her Panathenaia festival in ancient Athens. Being vivid, beautiful and expensive colors seems to have made them appropriate for ritual use, something that was also seen in the Roman bride’s costume.

The belt itself was made of wool, and tied with the so-called Hercules (Herakles) knot, what we’d call a square or reef knot. The Hercules knot was much used in jewelry, and had amuletic powers of good luck and fertility through its association with Hercules, Who the Romans saw as a God of Marriage Who fathered many (many!! something like seventy!!!) children. It was also believed to have healing properties, as bandages were tied with it; Pliny says the knot itself could cure wounds.

According to Festus (a Roman grammarian of the 2nd century CE) the knotted woolen belt was a symbol of the marriage itself, where a woman and man were bound to each other (we still say ’tie the knot’ to refer to getting married). Traditionally the Hercules knot was tied tightly by the bride’s mother the morning of the wedding, to be untied by the groom in the marriage bed. The act of untying it, besides being a symbol of sex, was also supposed to bring good luck in the form of fertility to the groom, again in reference to Hercules’s many children.

I do not know just how much brides were told about sex before their marriage in Roman times; I have a feeling it wasn’t much. Cinxia was there to watch over and to help things go smoothly for the bride in her first sexual encounter. Other aspects of Juno, such as Unxia and Interduca, were also invoked in the ceremonies, making it so that at least one aspect of Juno was always ‘with’ the bride. Fortuna, also, was there to help things go well, in Her aspect of Fortuna Virginalis (also called Virginensis): brides dedicated their childhood clothing to Her, to symbolize their passage to adulthood.

Having a Goddess assigned to the specific time of a bride’s loss of virginity shows that the Romans knew this to be a threshold or liminal time when the bride was entering into a new role, that of an adult woman. Of course, besides the sexual activity and potential pregnancy and childbirth, the bride was taken to live in the groom’s house, and would have had to say goodbye to her family and her friends (symbolized by her mother tying the belt on before the ceremony, and her new husband untying it afterwards). Though the Romans were of course unrelentingly patriarchal, perhaps they recognized this as a trying time for the bride, who suddenly found herself in an entirely new life with different expectations. Maybe this is why there were so many minor Deities or aspects of Deities involved in the rite of marriage, to help the bride; then again, perhaps the reasoning is that the smoother things went, the less trouble for the groom.

While in the West, at least, we (mostly) understand that women are not property to simply be passed from one family to the next (although a father does still traditionally ‘give away’ his daughter to her new man, the husband) and while (hopefully) we are beginning to get it through our heads, culturally, that ‘virginity’ is a meaningless concept and really only important in so far as the woman herself does or does not care, still, a girl or woman’s first sexual experience does bring new issues that have to be acknowledged, such as the potential for disease or pregnancy. Perhaps given the modern reality, Juno Cinxia may be seen as a Goddess Who prepares a girl or woman for her first time, by being on her side, looking after her, and helping her access knowledge or resources.