Often from sexual unions with their son-husbands, some goddesses bore numerous offspring. In this pattern, the Mother, like a goddess of fertility, was often accompanied by a young male deity who was both her son and later her husband after his father's demise: Astaroth with Tammuz, Kybele with Attis, etc. The pattern of a mother-goddess coupling with a young male deity was widespread in the entire pre-Aryan and pre-Semitic cultural zone of Orient from southwest Asia to the eastern Mediterranean.
