The Consequences of the Fall

Equality of Man and Woman in the Fall

This original equality of man and woman may be confirmed in the Fall narrative, in which Eve takes a leading role while the role of man is limited, passive, and secondary compared with the important role taken by the woman: “She gave to her husband, and he also ate” (Gen 3:6).¹

The rest of the Bible teaches that man and woman were both equally participant and responsible in the Fall and that Adam was not less culpable than Eve (cf. Rom 5:12–21; 1 Cor 15:21, 22). This reflects once more the biblical view of their original oneness and solidarity.

Marital Relationships Affected by the Fall

Genesis 3 narrates how sin distorted not only the relationship between man and God, but also between man and woman. The consequences of their rebellion corrupted the “very good” project of God’s creation. Their sin seriously distorted their relationship as God had originally intended.

The key passage is Genesis 3:16, where God says to Eve, “He (Adam) will rule over you.” This is the first passage in the Bible that makes a reference to gender roles. Commentators have explained this text in different ways:

• Some suggest that subordination of woman is a creation ordinance and not caused by the Fall. According to their view sin corrupted the original hierarchy between the sexes. God’s plan must be restored by the gospel.²

• Others who also see subordination of woman to man as a creation ordinance find a reaffirmation of it here, but mainly consider it a “blessing” for the woman in order to comfort her in the difficulties of motherhood.³

• For others, the dominance of the husband over the wife mentioned in Genesis 3:16 does not represent “God’s order for families,” but a sad result of the Fall. In this text, the dominance of men over women is not prescribed by God, but just described or predicted by Him.⁴ The sentence pronounced upon the woman should be understood in the sense of a painful foretelling of the transformation of the woman’s condition in a fallen world, just as the sentence pronounced upon Adam and the earth announces a similar modification of man’s working conditions.

• Others contend that the subordination of woman did not exist before the Fall. But, as a consequence of sin, God ordained for the wife, in this fallen world, a new role that requires submission to her husband’s leadership. Some understand this new role as something permanent and others as something temporary, to be restored by the gospel.⁵

• Finally, some others deny completely subordination of woman to man, both as a creation ordinance and in Genesis 3:16. In their view the Hebrew verb for “to rule” can also be translated here as “to be like,” emphasizing the permanent equality of husband and wife.⁶

Man-Woman Relationships in the Beginning: Genesis 1–3 — Five Major Views

We may summarize these five views in the following chart:⁷

If God had established in His original plan that husband and wife stand together on an equal basis before Him and relate to one another as equals, Genesis 3:16 would probably fit better in the context as a prediction of the effects of the Fall rather than as a prescription of God’s new order. The kind of rulership of men over women that we know in human history is certainly not a part of the original created order, but either a consequence of sin or a part of the curse.⁸

The literary style of the statement “he shall rule over you”

On the basis of the Hebrew grammar, it has been observed that the sentence “he shall rule over you” has some legal overtones that would correspond better to a divine “mandate” than to a “prophecy.” According to this view, a certain headship role of the husband over the wife could be implied.⁹ Whether this submission should be permanent or removed by the gospel remains a debated issue.¹⁰

The meaning of the term “to rule”

Since the word māšal employed in Genesis 3:16 for “to rule, to have dominion over” is not the same word used in Genesis 1:26, 28 for human rulership over the animals, an important distinction has to be made concerning the kind of “rulership” expected from the husband over his wife. In fact, the semantic range of the verb māšal does not necessarily imply the authority of a despotic power, but may also point to a servant leadership including protection and love in the sense that the husband is charged with the role of lovingly taking care of his wife. This makes it possible for some “to understand the divine sentence in Genesis 3:16 as involving not only punishment but blessing.”¹¹

The sense of the word “desire”

A statement of submission is also seen in the phrase directed by God to Eve “your desire shall be for your husband.” The meaning of the Hebrew word tĕšûqâ (“strong desire, yearning”), which appears only three times in Scripture, may refer to an unbalanced and unsatisfied longing to control another person, as a result of the Fall (cf Gen 4:6, 7).¹² This meaning may be enlighted by the only other occurrence of this term in a context of man-woman relationship in the Song of Solomon, where the Shulamite joyfully exclaims, “I am my beloved’s, and his desire [tĕšûqâ] is for me” (Song 7:10). In this context the mutual desire may be reflective of the original mutuality of Genesis 1 and 2. This desire is not the same as the one just mentioned above. In any case, the context of Genesis 3:16 is specifically that of marriage. The text speaks only of the wife’s desire for her husband and the husband’s rule over his wife,¹³ and not about man and woman in general.

The significance of the “curse”

One might conclude that “of the suggested interpretations for Genesis 3:16 described above, view 4 is to be preferred, in that there is a normative divine sentence announcing a subjection/submission of wife to husband as a result of sin. This involves, however, not only a negative judgment but also (and especially) a positive blessing designed to lead back as much as possible to the original plan of harmony and union between equal partners.”¹⁴ The divine judgment/blessing in Genesis 3:16 would facilitate the achievement of the original design for marriage within the context of a sinful world.

Although we may agree with this interpretation, there is a point that seems to us problematic, for the curse is a curse. For instance, we would not argue that weeds (the curse on the ground) are a blessing. In our opinion, the gospel in Genesis 3 is to be found not in the curse itself but in the announcement of the messianic Offspring to come, who would crush sin as represented by the serpent. In a fallen world the best the curse can do is to provide a cast to give support to brokenness until the Healer and the healing comes. But one does not have to wear a cast longer than needed. While the cast continues to be necessary in a broken world, as long as Christ has not been accepted in the hearts of husbands and wives, a different situation is to be found with those who have been transformed by His grace. In the light of the gospel this “cast” would remain as temporary subordination, until conversion has brought restoration and healing.

Whatever the new relationship of subjection/submission mentioned in Genesis 3:16 might be, this chapter provides no conclusive basis for arguing that the basic equality between male and female established at Creation was altered as a result of the Fall.

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¹ It is worth noting that the text does not reprove the couple for the woman’s taking a leading role, but for both disobeying God’s orders (Gen 3:17).

² Calvin, 172, sees the condition of woman before the Fall as “gentle subjection,” but after the Fall she is “cast into servitude.” Cf. Bacchiocchi, “Headship,” 79–84.

³ “Servitude, therefore, of this sort is a gift of God. Wherefore, compliance with the servitude is to be reckoned among blessings” (Ambrose De Paradiso, 350), quoted by Stephen B. Clark, Man and Woman in Christ: An Examination of the Roles of Men and Women in the Light of Scripture and the Social Sciences (Ann Arbor, MI: Servants Broks, 1980), 677.

⁴ See Gilbert Bilezikian, Beyond Sex Roles. A Guide for the Study of Female Roles in the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: 1985), 54–55; Paul K. Jewett, Man as Male and Female: A Study of Sexual Relationships from a Theological Point of View (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1975), 114.

⁵ See Francis Schaeffer, Genesis in Space and Time (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity), 1975, 93–94. See Trible, 41.

⁶ Others restrict male “rulership” only to the area of sexuality, with the consequence of undesired pregnancies, etc. See John H. Orwell, And Sarah Laughed: The Status of Women in the Old Testament (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster, 1977), 18, and Carol L. Meyers, “Gender Roles and Gen 3:16 Revisited,” in The Word of the Lord Shall go Forth (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbraun, 1983), 337–354.

⁷ This chart is adapted from Davidson, 266.

⁸ White identifies Adam’s “rule over her” as part of the curse: “When God created Eve, He designed that she should possess neither inferiority nor superiority to the man, but that in all things she should be his equal. … But after Eve’s sin, as she was first in the transgression, the Lord told her that Adam should rule over her. She was to be in subjection to her husband, and this was part of the curse. In many cases the curse has made the lot of woman very grievous and her life a burden” (Testimonies, vol. 3, 484). Notice that White does not say that the submission of Eve was because of her gender, but because she was first in the transgression. “In assessing the true intent of this passage, we must immediately call into question those interpretations which proceed from the assumption that a hierarchy of the sexes existed before the Fall (views 1 and 2). The analysis of Genesis 1 and 2 has shown that no such subordination or subjection of woman to man was present in the beginning” (Davidson, 266).

⁹ White seems to adopt this interpretation: “In the creation God had made her (Eve) the equal to Adam. Had they remained obedient to God—in harmony with His great law of love—they would have been in harmony with each other; but sin had brought discord, and now their union could be maintained and harmony preserved only by submission on the part of the one or the other. Eve had been the first in transgression; and she had fallen into temptation by separating from her companion, contrary to the divine direction. It was by her solicitation that Adam sinned, and she was now placed in subjection to her husband. Had the principles enjoined in the law of God been cherished by the fallen race, this sentence, though growing out of the results of sin, would have proved a blessing to them; but man’s abuse of the supremacy thus given him has too often rendered the lot of woman very bitter and made her life a burden” (Patriarchs and Prophets, 59).

¹⁰ “It is not inappropriate to return as much as possible to God’s original plan for total equality in marriage, while at the same time retaining the validity of the headship principle as necessary in a sinful world to preserve harmony in the home” (Davidson, 267).

¹¹ J. B. Hurley, Man and Woman in Biblical Perspective (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1981), 216–219.

¹² Bryan Craig, Searching of Intimacy in Marriage (Silver Spring, MD: Ministerial Association, General Conference of SDA, 2004), 34–35, says, “To achieve this, Eve would become like the serpent who used his cunning, sly, and crafty ways to accomplish his objective and elicit support for his wounded pride and revengeful spirit. Adam reciprocated to this changed relationship in similar ways. He blamed Eve for his miserable self-loathing and sought to dominate and control her by ruling over her … in the same air of arrogance … he has shown toward God.”

¹³ The headship of the husband prescribed in this passage (Gen 3:16d) can no more be broadened to refer to men-women relationships in general than can the sexual desire of the wife (Gen 3:16c) be broadened to mean the sexual desire of any woman for any man. Any attempt to extend this prescription beyond the husband-wife relationship is not warranted by the text. In any case, the particular submission of wife to husband does not imply a general subordination of women to men. Cf. G. Hasel, “Equality from the Start: Woman in the Creation Story,” Spectrum 7/2 (1975), 23. See also the same author in Man and Woman in Genesis 1–3 (Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews University Press, 1976), 261.

¹⁴ This is the viewpoint of Davidson, 269.