Cinxia was a minor Roman god of the wedding bed (di coniugales).
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Cinxia works with the belt (cingulum) that the bride wears to symbolize that her husband is “girded and bound” (vinctusque cinctus) to her. It was tied with the knot of Hercules meant to be complicated and difficult to untie. Augustine calls this goddess virginiensis (virgo, “virgin”), indicating that the untying is the loss of symbolic virginity. Cinxia may have been felt as a gift during a ritual designed to facilitate childbirth. The man who fathered the child takes off his own “(cinctus), ties it to (cinxerit) around the parturient, and then he releases him with a prayer in which the person who tied him to her in childbirth should likewise release her: he should then depart.” women who had miscarriages were advised to tie their bellies for nine whole months with a belt “(cinxerit) of wool from a lamb fed by a wolf.
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