Juno
The view that Juno was the feminine counterpart to Genius, i.e. that as men possess a tutelary entity or double named genius, so women have their own one named juno, has been maintained by many scholars, lastly Kurt Latte.[171] In the past it has also been argued that goddess Juno herself would be the issue of a process of abstraction from the individual junos of every woman.[172] According to Georg Wissowa and K. Latte, Genius (from the root gen-, whence gigno bear or be born, archaic also geno) would designate the specific virile generative potency, as opposed to feminine nature, reflected in conception and delivery, under the tutelage of Juno Lucina. Such an interpretation has been critically reviewed by Walter F. Otto.[173]
Juno
While there are some correspondences between the ideas about genius and juno, especially in the imperial age, the relevant documentation is rather late (Tibullus mentions it first).[174] Dumézil also remarks that from these passages one could infer that every woman has a Venus too. As evidence of the antiquity of the concept of a juno of women, homologous to the genius of men, is the Arval sacrifice of two sheep to the Juno Deae Diae ("the juno of goddesses named Dea Dia"), in contrast to their sacrifice of two cows sacrificed to Juno (singular). However both G. Wissowa and K. Latte allow that this ritual could have been adapted to fit theology of the Augustan restoration.[175] While the concept of a Juno of goddesses is not attested in the inscriptions of 58 BC from Furfo,[176] that of a Genius of gods is,[177] and even of a Genius of a goddess, Victoria. On this point it looks remarkable that also in Martianus Capella's division of Heaven a Juno Hospitae Genius is mentioned in region IX, and not a Juno: the sex of this Genius is feminine.[178] See section below for details.
The genius was believed to be associated with the forehead of each man, while goddess Juno, not the juno of every woman, was supposed to have under her jurisdiction the eyebrows of women[185] or to be the tutelary goddess of the eyebrows of everybody, irrespective of one's sex.[186][187] 041b061a72