Not a Maya user, but does it not have a similar prefab human rig like Max's Biped? If it really is purely for posing, then throwing in some bones to make a human skeleton will be enough. No need for IK and all that stuff. Hell, you could just duplicate her and manually go in and pose it at a mesh level, although I think…
I'm somewhat inexperienced in this area but I'll offer a couple suggestions. I've found, as Mark said, rigging is a whole subject in itself that as an artist, it may not be all that worthwhile to become expertly efficient with. Of course a knowledge of how things are rigged later on would be highly valuable. I'd personally…