Emerentia is the name given for a grandmother of Mary, mother of Jesus, in some European traditions and art from the late 15th century. She is not to be confused with Saint Emerentiana, a Roman martyr of the 3rd century.

There is no reference to the grandmother of Mary, by name or otherwise, in the canonical New Testament. There is also no reference in the Protoevangelium of James, which is the earliest source naming Saint Joachim and Saint Anne as the parents of Mary.

Stories about Anne form part of Jacobus de Voragine's Legenda Aurea, but a grandmother is not mentioned. An early source mentioning Emerentia, is Josse Bade's (Jodocius Badius Ascensius, 1461–1535) 1502 translation of Petrus Dorlandus' work Vita gloriosissime matris Anne contained in the larger compilation Vita Iesu Christi ... ex evangelio et approbatis ab ecclesia catholica doctoribus sedule collecta per Ludolphum per Saxonia (published in Paris), which tells the story:

Seventy seven years before the birth of Christ, a pious maiden, quite well off and remarkably beautiful, was in the habit of visiting, with her parents' permission, the sons of prophets on Mount Carmel. She was disinclined to marriage, until one of the Carmelites had a prophetic dream, they saw a root from which grew two trees, one had three branches, all bearing flowers, but one a flower more pure and fragrant than all the rest ... Then a voice was heard saying: "This root is our Emerentia, destined to have great descendants.

Long hair is a hairstyle. Exactly what constitutes long hair can change from culture to culture, or even within cultures. For example, a woman with chin-length hair in some cultures may be said to have short hair, while a man with the same length of hair in some of the same cultures would be said to have long hair.

Scientists view long hair as playing a large part in natural selection among many species, since long, thick and healthy hair or fur is frequently a sign of fertility and youth. As hair grows slowly, long hair reveals several years of a person's health status and reproductive fitness. Hair length is significantly correlated with female attractiveness, as rated by men as well as women. Hair length and quality can act as a cue to especially a woman's youth and health, signifying reproductive potential. The prevalence of trichophilia (hair partialism or fetischism) is 7% in the population, and very long hair is a common subject of devotion in this group.

Ways of life often viewed as more rigid, such as soldiers and religious cultures, often have explicit rules regarding hair length. For example, Buddhist monks shave their heads as part of their order of worship. Even outside religious structures, cultures often associate male long hair with ways of life outside of what is culturally accepted. Subservient cultures, for example, are sometimes detected by their rulers through hair length, as was the case with the Gaelic Irish under English rule and the Moors under Spanish rule in Medieval Spain.