[continued from here.]
The Fall brought about many effects to all of humanity. The most obvious one is the alienation and spiritual death of all humanity who fell together with our first parents, thus setting all of us down the path of death, destruction and damnation. We will now look at the effects of the Fall on the relationship between men and women.
To the woman He [God] said,
“I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing;in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.”And to Adam He said,
“Because you have listened to the voice of your wifeand have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”The man called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. (Gen. 3:16-20)
The curses brought about by the Fall took effect immediately after they were uttered by God against our fallen parents. For the women, they included pain in childbirth. For men, work would be tough, as the Creation would now be in rebellion against Man the fallen creature, and would thus only yield food after much hard work. Now of course, women who decides to work would thus experience both hardships, but that is becauce they have decided to enter the workplace, which they do not have to do so according to the Creation mandate, whereas men have the total responsibility to work to provide for their families. (In other words, women do not have to work if they do not want to, but not men.)
In addition to these curses, God has also placed other curses against our first parents because of their sin, and through them to all humanity. Women now have this curse against them:
Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.
Now, this seems strange. What does the phrase 'your desire shall be for your husband' means? The latter phrase is obvious; that part of the curse would be for men to rule over women. In the footnote of this verse, the alternative rendering reads
Your desire shall be against your husband, and he shall rule over you.
Putting the two of them together, it can be seen that what the curse is about is that women now is placed under permenant subjection to their husband, and she would now be bitter over it. Whereas before, Eve willingly functioned as Adam's helpmate, now she has acquired a desire of rebellion against her husband and then forced into subjection for her husband's desires, as he rules over her. Women in general are thus affected by the Fall by their acquisition of a rebellious streak against men; a desire to ursurp authority and use men for their own selfish gain, manipulating them if necessary. However, the second part of the curse against women is that they would be forced if necessary into subjection back to the Created order, by now sullied by the Fall. Men would henceforth rule over women with an iron fist, and women became rebellious and resentful of his pre-eminence! Instead of loving obedience, there would be forced obedience. The tragic history of the world bear out this fact, as men who are usually stronger than women inflict cruelty against women, and women manipulate their husbands to further their own desires and aims in life if possible. The Feminist movement on one hand, representing the feminine rebellion, and the Islamofascist regimes on the other, representing the iron fist brought against women, are modern examples of the curse of God shown here.
This alienation between men and women can be seen in verse 20. Formerlly, before the Fall, both the man and the woman were collectively called Adam. After the Fall, however, they were alienated from each other, and Eve was given her name then. From the former fact, of course, come the idea that women should take after their husband's name, and thus any changes are violations of God's creation order. From the latter, we can see that the Fall brought about alienation from each other, which is in this context seen in the alienation of men from women in society in general, and from each other individually.
[to be continued]
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