Journey Through the Archetypes: The Queen

Cultivate the unique power & beauty of the Queen for power, confidence, companionship and legacy.

By Frederic Leighton (English; 1830 - 1896)

Today we continue our archetypal journey and we are to meet the Queen, the feminine version of the Sovereign. Within the Queen archetype, we also find the archetype of the Wife and with her, of course, the polar opposite of that archetype which is the archetype of the Widow. You can find other archetypes in our archetypes section.

The Queen is the female sovereign, the very archetype of power and authority. Her power and authority come from her magnetic radiance — she is generous, giving, open, the “Queen Bee” of any place or community. She holds things together, she inspires, she moves, and if you are around her, you feel inspired to do your best. She is also very happy to lift you up and help you come into your own power. People generally love them because of their open, liberal, generous and inviting spirit.

Very often, the Queen is found as an authority in the world of women — think Mother Superior among the nuns. The world of matriarchs, of powerful women who each has her own kingdom and are very often fighting passionate wars is the world of the Queen. The Queen archetype is glamorous and generous but also aggressive and potentially ruthless.

In our world — the Queen women also run their own “Empires”. Usually they are prominent in industries that appeal to women — media empires, lifestyle empires, cosmetics or fashion empires, jewellery, and also any kind of charity, organisation or such that seeks to empower women.

In spite of their ‘grandness’, Queens are approachable, good friends and confidants. Sometimes they can be that one friend who gives you a harsh but loving critique that helps you get better. You probably have met the Queen casually — maybe you were in a hair salon or shopping, and she is that one powerful, seemingly threatening woman, who hyped you up and complimented your looks and personality. She validated you in your desire to ‘get the man’ or to ‘get him to pay for you and buy you gifts’ and you left feeling rejuvenated and less at war with yourself. She is expressive and fun to be around. She also does not mind pursuing a man that she has an eye on.

The Queen archetype, as mentioned, includes the Wife archetype. Her queenly qualities of commitment, consistency, self-possession and loyalty make it so that she functions well as a pair. The Wife is, on an archetypal level, co-ruler of the household and her traditional domain was what we may call the “ministry of interior affairs”. Queen is often found among the first ladies and other women who can hold the pressure of high responsibility and power.

The fate of the Wife is eventually to experience the Widowhood and that is why these two are inseparable. Even if a woman’s husband does not actually ‘die’, there is an element of experiencing this, simply due to the function that the wife plays in a man’s life on a subtle level.

Wife often supports and guides the husband; she nourishes and sustains his life and life path. She provides him with social respect, children or general support — and in that aspect, she functions like a mother because it is her ‘milk’ that sustains him and gives him ‘god-like’ power (Hera’s queenly milk is what gives god-like power to Hercules). However it also functions that over time, the husband, due to this subtle dynamic, becomes ‘smaller’ while she becomes ‘bigger’, subtly completely consuming his life force (hence the common jokes about wife limiting or draining the man). This is when a woman may psychologically experience widowhood even if her husband is alive — he has become so small, so dry that he can no longer satisfy her, and there is a real grief happening there. We can find this mirrored in the myths in which the feminine being devours her own consort and then due to this grief becomes a cold winter. She then may go in the Underworld to ‘gather’ the pieces of her husband’s body, or search for them elsewhere, in order to bring him back to life. Goddesses as widows often rule winter as a season or are portrayed as dry crones or witches. This is not necessarily because she is ugly, but because while in the grieving stage, she is the universe that has lost her Sun. And without her Sun she cannot grow and create, initiating her into ‘dryness’ (widowhood).

When he is reborn, he is fully her child — this is why in much imagery, a goddess or a feminine figure holds King or a re-born form of her consort/husband on her lap; or she holds him against her breast like a mother. Wife is the ‘chosen mother’.

This is also why, she is often the woman who places her husband above her children. Her maternal tendencies are actually directed towards the husband. As a negative extreme, this can make her into a Medea who slays her own children (in real life through neglect or even tolerating a husband’s abuse & mistreatment over them) in order to preserve the relationship with the husband.

The Wife often also functions as limiting and corrective force to her consort’s energy. And we see this in Juno who usually acts as the limiting and corrective force to Jupiter’s over-expansion. As a pure life-giving principle and complete generosity, the Jupiter archetype gives indiscriminately, potentially creating imbalance and overgrowth that is harmful to the cosmic order. Her corrective limitation makes sure that his creative and generous impulse is correctly channeled (in and through his wife) and not randomly dispersed into chaos. A man seeks the archetypal Wife when on the subconscious level, he desires this limitation and transformation; when he desires for his energy to be ‘corrected’ and ‘refined’.

Today’s article shall help you connect with the Queen archetype or balance her negative tendencies if you have her as one of the dominant archetypes. The Queen may be good for you to cultivate if you struggle with confidence, self-assertion, standing out and taking charge. She will also help you if you struggle with commitment — this is not relationships only, but do you abandon your projects all too quickly? Do you fail to complete things? Do you resist luxury, wealth, abundance, seeing them as evil or vain? If you have Queen among your dominants, understanding her capacity for rage, for abuse and ruthlessness is also crucial. If you are a ‘serial monogamist’, understanding how it works as Queen’s shadow—placing a man on the throne that is your lap without him actually claiming the throne—will help you get out of these patterns.