THE FALL OF ADAM AND EVE, THE CURSE ON THE WOMAN

INTRODUCTION

The first man, Adam, was set into a state of happiness and was promised its continuity, to him and to his posterity, under the condition of his fidelity in perfect obedience to the statues and ordinances given to him by his creator. Thus he should not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. However, in disregard to the commands of the Lord, Adam faltered and fell. In the garden, Adam and Eve lived in a state of perfection. They experienced total harmony with the Creator, with His creation, and with each other. This balance was destroyed when Adam and Eve submitted to the will of the tempter rather than to the will of God. At that point in time, both the woman and man were cursed, inalterably changing the course of history and the outworking of the original created order.

The initial creation was paradisiacal; death and mortality was not part of it. There was no mortal flesh upon the earth for any form of life; all things had been created in a state of paradisiacal immortality. The fall of Adam and Eve which is summed up as the concept of ‘the fall’ is used to describe the transitional deployment from the state of tranquility in the Garden of Eden to a state of hardship outside the garden. This is basically from the biblical interpretation of the book of Genesis. The fall is an apocryphal expression of the revolt of our first parents from God, and the consequent sin and misery in which they and all their posterity were involved.

THE FALL: WHAT HAPPENED?

From the beginning God placed Adam and eve in the primeval Garden of Eden to tend but, on the penalty of death, God commanded them not to eat the “tree of knowledge of good and evil.” Adam and Eve were persons of innocence, until they yielded to the temptations of the serpent. Consequently they were driven out of the garden, and they lost their paradisiacal immortality, and that was the beginning of a life of suffering for them. God proclaimed punishments on them for their disobedience: for the woman, her punishment was pain in childbirth and subordination to the man, and for the man, relegation to an accursed ground with which he must toil and sweat for his subsistence. The fall brought shame, degradation and pollution to man (loss of innocence), and displeasure to God.

The blissful harmony of the Garden of Eden came to an abrupt end. Man and woman brought this tragedy upon themselves. The story of this tragedy has three moments: temptation, fall and judgment. The serpent tempted Eve, and Eve succumbed and involved his companion Adam, causing the both to sin against God. Their disobedience disrupted the friendly relationship between them and God and destroyed the simple harmony between themselves, thus they blamed each other. This act of disobedience bothers majorly on man’s desire to acquire knowledge, but eating the forbidden fruit only revealed to man, in a humiliating way, his utter ‘creatureliness’ and thus they became shamefully conscious of their nakedness. They were cursed and sent out of the Garden of Eden, and doomed to die. These consequences extend beyond Adam and Eve to their descendants; the entire human race.

THE TEMPTING SERPENT

Being created in the image of God, Adam and Eve were moral beings with freewill. They had the capacity to decide for themselves. Some scholars are of the opinion that the serpent tempted the woman because she was weaker and inferior to the man. They were of the opinion that if the man was first tempted, mankind would not have fallen. However, some other scholars are of the opinion the serpent tempted the woman first because she was the final perfecting element in creation. Being the perfection of creation, with the fall of the woman, the man was already destined to fall. However this second group of scholars holds that if man fell first, the woman being the perfection might not have disobeyed too. Another common explanation is that the tempter addressed the woman because she had not personally received the prohibition from God as Adam had. A fourth possibility is that the serpent approached her because of a difference in woman’s personality which made her more vulnerable to attack. Some of these explanations appear plausible, but we may never conclusively grasp the serpent’s plan.

THE FALL: THE CURSE ON EVE

God’s original idea for man was to stay in blessings not in a curse.  However, when man became disobedient to the commandments originally given to him by God, it brought a curse to all humanity and distorted the image of God in man.  The fall made humans sinful, and brought death into the world. Man and woman lost their confidence in the sight of God and sort to hide away from his face. The woman was tricked into disobedience in which he involved the man. The consequences of their disobedience were instant. The created order was violated and relationships were impaired. God cursed the man and his wife as the result of their disobedience. Eve first transgressed the limits of the Eden and initiated the conditions for mortality. The very act of disobedience that started with Eve cost man his initial happiness. As a consequence of the very act of disobedience God cursed Eve thus: “I will increase your suffering in child-bearing, and you will give birth to your children in pain, yet your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you”. The primordial disobedience earn woman an inferior social position to man. The curse of the woman is categorized in three aspects: pain, desire and rule-ship of man over her life. The three are interrelated.

The curse is in two parts, each composed of two parallel clauses. The first part deals with child-bearing and the second with marital relations. With two quick strokes God illustrates the bane of women throughout the ages. The curse on eve bothers basically on motherhood and wifehood. God pronounced on her pain of child bearing, and subordination to man. Before the transgression there is harmony and peace, Adam and Eve lived a blissful life. It can also be argued that prior to their disobedience; there is a kind equality between man and the woman, or the man is not over the woman. However God subjugating of woman under man is her chastisement. The fall brought rule-ship of man over the woman. The immediate two sentences pronounced punishment that concerns child birth. Women suffering down the centuries have multiplied through the different generations; there are cases where expectation period prolong beyond nine months. Irrespective of the sufferings and pangs of child birth, the woman is still subjected under the man.

The second part of the judgment God pronounced on the woman is just as significant as the first; yet it is always taken lightly, just a few are aware of its implications. “Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” Following the sentence structure of the original Hebrew text, it explains the role difficulty women experience to this day. The pattern established prior to the fall was a hierarchy of roles characterized by unity and oneness. However the judgment would work against, rather than contribute to, this original created order and unity. The second part of the judgment necessarily subjected woman under the man; thereby setting a patriarchal standard for the basis of their relationship.

THE PLIGHTS OF THE THIRD WORLD WOMEN

The entrance of sin into the world changed man and woman’s relationship to God and to creation. No longer do women and men walk in harmony with God. The unity and equality present in the first relationship has disintegrated. Role confusion, rebellion, and disharmony reign. Eve’s curse has resulted in the virtual subjugation of women ever since. Women had few rights.  In the past, fathers sold their daughters into slavery or wed them to the highest bidder. In some places wives existed to give the husband pleasure and sons and to keep the house. Many societies insisted that women be veiled in public, and some considered it a criminal act for a woman to walk out of her house without a chaperone. In short, a woman was chattel. However, in the third world, the genesis pronouncement on the woman sowed the first seed of male chauvinism.

Since the time of eve, women experience pain in childbirth. According to a research done by a pain specialist, the pang of birth is far greater than the pain of amputating a finger without Anastasia injection. The pain of childbirth is too severe that some women can’t bear it, many had given up trying to put to birth, and many more have resorted to cesarean section. Some of the cases of the increase in mortality rate during child birth may be as a result of inadequacy of standard facilities, but it also is as a result of the curse of the woman.

With regards to male dominance, especially in the third world, women have sort to usurp male authority and dominance only for them to be crushed, suppressed and oppressed. The male counterparts have been so oppressive, domineering, unfair and uncaring. Women in the third world have wrongly and rudely been pronounced inferior. The modern feminist movement has risen in the past few decades to combat male chauvinism and domination. However, the principle of men ruling over and women fighting back to overcome this rule cannot be broken by our own efforts. This is not something that has evolved historically and culturally. It is a principle deeply engraved into our sin nature. It is a direct result of the Fall and the judgment of God.

Women go through different types of suffering and struggles all over in the third world. Its hard and a difficulty to be a woman in the third world; the women subordination in the third world is alarming. In the third world, women are taken to be slaves especially in the societies that uphold firmly the patriarchal system. These men have little or no interest about the sufferings of women. These women are subjected to men, used for sexual fulfillment, domestic duties etc. the women of the third world have be severely subjugated and humiliated. Of the 1.6 billion people who live in extreme poverty, the majority are women. Every day, thousands of women and girls are victims of violence, including sexual abuse, trafficking and early and forced marriage. The health of women also remains a global challenge. In 2010, 287,000 women died during or shortly after childbirth. Developing countries in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia had the largest share of these deaths. In many developing countries, there are far fewer girls than boys to be found in secondary schools and it is therefore harder for them to find good jobs. The women of the third world are always victims.

OUTSTANDING PLIGHTS OF THE THIRD WORLD WOMEN

The status of women’s rights today varies dramatically in different countries and, in some cases, among groups within the same country, such as ethnic groups or economic classes. Many disparities persist between women’s legal rights and their economic status mostly in the third world countries. Women today constitute nearly 70 percent of the world’s poor, despite international efforts to compensate women and men equally. Women also remain at a distinct disadvantage in education as well. While primary school enrollment for girls now roughly equals that of boys, women constitute about two-thirds of the world’s one billion illiterate adults.

Women in the third world face all forms of discrimination on the basis of their sex. Deep-seated cultural beliefs allowed women only limited roles in the third world societies. Many people are of the belief and opinion that women’s natural roles were as mothers and wives, and they should be relegated and considered on that level. These people considered women to be better suited for childbearing and homemaking rather than for involvement in the public life of business or politics. Widespread belief that women were intellectually inferior to men led most of the third world societies to limit women’s education to the learning domestic skills. Most of the women of the third world societies lacked the educational and economic resources that would enable them to challenge the prevailing social order; they generally accepted their inferior status as their only option. This is because most of the organized effort by these women to achieve greater rights and recognition in the society are not achieving their purpose. Fragile in every sense of the word, they are obliged to look up to man for every comfort. Thus some outstanding plights of the third world women include: humiliation and subjugation, patriarchism, maltreatment and domestic violence, genital mutilation, slavery etc.

HUMILIATION AND SUBJUGATION: Too easy deductions must be avoided and yet the interest of men dominance and women subjugation is worthy of reflection. Women of the third world are humiliated on daily basis in many different ways. Women continuously encounter many challenges in their Third World societies and in the World in general, one of which is to secure social status for themselves in a mostly male-dominated society. Women are devalued and taken to be the weaker sex with little or no importance attached to them. The dogma of women’s complete historical subjugation to men must be rated as one of the most fantastic myths ever created by the human mind. For instance in some societies, when a woman loses the husband, some bans are placed on her, she is not expected to come out in the public for a given period of time, and her hair would be shaved off. While in the same society, when a man loses his wife, nothing happens to him. In some cultures too, it is said that when a king die, he is buried with his first wife, while in same cultures when the wife of the king dies, the king will rather take another wife unto himself. Majorly in the third world too, women are mostly given a passive and not active voice.

PATRIARCHISM: The biggest challenge facing the women of the third world is the patriarchy system. In the third world regardless of a woman’s experience, education and abilities, she is relegated to the background, below the least of the men. The women are taken to be less qualified and competent. Patriarchy convinces people to see a strong and intelligent woman as a problem; a disruption of the social order. Many still believe that women are less worthy of the same opportunities afforded to men. With this social order men behave the way they like and always against women.

MALTREATMENT AND DOMESTIC VIOLENCE: this bothers majorly on sexual oppression. Women are taken as objects that exist to fulfill the pleasure of men. The third world women suffer verbal, emotional, physical and sexual abuses, along with traumatic injuries, sexually transmitted diseases, chronic pain, eating and sleeping disorders etc. it has been estimated that one woman out of three in the third world has been beaten, forced into sex, or otherwise abused in her lifetime. Women are used for sexual fulfillment, for domestic duties, to tend to the children.

GENITAL MUTILATION: this plight of women of the third world is dehumanizing. It is worse in the societies where this dehumanizing act is carried out years after infancy. There is uncertainty regarding reasons for persistence of the practice of female genital mutilation. However, some hold that it is a measure of taming the sensual urge of the woman.

SLAVERY: this is one of the most dehumanizing things suffered by the women of the third world. The women of the third world are seen as less valuable. Women in some societies of the third world are used to pay off debts. Some fathers give out their under aged daughter to marriage and mostly against the daughter’s will to marriage because they are unable to pay up debts they owe. While in some other societies women are taken and relegated to mere domestic work force without education or empowerment plans for them.

CONCLUSION

Woman is necessary for man for the purpose of generation according to God’s command. However, women are not only for procreation but are help mates, sole-mates and companions. The woman accompanies man on the journey of life and not only to serve his need. Women are not inferior to men, thus the creator took out of the side of man to create woman this emphasizes an intended social equality, the woman was not taken out of the head of man to rule him, nor out of his feet to be under him, but from his side to be his companion.

However, the creation and Fall of mankind lay the foundation for New Testament role directives. Upon the third world women have been laid all the vices and follies of civilization and culture. Their senses are inflamed, and their understandings neglected, consequently they become the prey of their senses, delicately termed sensibility, and are blown about by every momentary gust of feeling. Most of the third world women are weakened by their culture and erroneous opinions in the favour of men as against women. The third world women’s condition is much below what it would be, were they left in a state nearer to nature. The sentences passed on man and woman affected their relationship to God, nature, and each other. These judgments affected Adam and Eve after the Fall and have affected every human being since. In Genesis the battle between the sexes began. Hard labor, sin, corruption, and death are unmistakable realities that face us every day. The judgments passed on Adam and Eve influences every human who has ever walked the face of this earth. This harsh treatment of women, which is pretty much the general pattern of human history, was not the original design of God. Sin brought it in and it therefore corrupted the original relationship between man and woman. In a very specific way, women have a general category of suffering and primarily their suffering is related to two things. It’s related to their children and their husbands; the perennial bearing and caring of children and the perennial dealing with husbands. It is a hard and has been a hard and relentless and often sorrowful duty through most of the history of women and even till today.