The Fall and Its Consequences

By William R. Cunningham
May 21, 2000

The Fall

We have concluded from the biblical text that women are not inferior to men and consequently men are not superior to women. We saw that there were no restrictions placed on women in God’s purpose for humans. Both the man and the woman had dominion. Now of course there were differences between the man and the woman. The biblical text suggests that the only difference was sexual. The fact psychological differences between men and women at the time of creation are only speculative at best. There is no mention of the woman being emotional and them man being analytical. The existence of this and other categories of the differences between men and women may very well be attributed to the "fall."

What were the consequences of the fall on the relationship between men and women? Of course the fall had a great affect on our relationship with God, however, this study will focus on the man/woman relationship. Let’s investigate the circumstances of the fall to determine if it can shed more light on men/women relationships.

Why did the serpent attack the woman instead of the man? Was it because she was inferior, emotional, or naive? If these were true then the serpent’s attack of the women would not have made much sense and would be ripe with failure at the least. This verse says that he was the most cunning beast in the field so we can assume that his attack on Eve was planned and calculated. Consider the following scripture.

The strong man is the one that can ultimately protect. He is the one that has the power and authority over a household in this case. In order to affect change in that strong man’s house, you must first defeat the strong man.

How in the world would the serpent expect to affect the human race by going through the woman if the Adam (the male) was indeed the superior being? If the man was superior to the woman then it would have been a tactical error to approach the women. That would be similar to someone attacking the mayor of a city, if you will, in order to conquer the United States. No. You have to go for the highest office. For practical and illustrative purposes we will say that the highest office would be the Presidency. So if the man was indeed the superior being then the serpent should have attacked him to affect any change or inflict any damage.

Now these findings are consistent with our previous findings regarding the relationship between men and women and God’s original purpose. The man was not superior to the woman! So again, why did the serpent attack the woman since she was not inferior to the man? Did he just attack the first one he came into contact with? That would also be a tactical error, which is to devise an attack based merely on chance of encounter. Much planning and preparation goes into any campaign against an opponent. Therefore, we can reasonably conclude that the serpent went after the women on purpose and for a particular reason. What was that reason?

Considering Mark 3:27 again, we see that the attack of the woman implied that she had authority and power to defeat him and to resist him otherwise his attack would be thwart with danger from our previous discussion. This is also consistent with our previous findings about the man’s and woman’s authority (dominion) over God’s creation. If the serpent could defeat the woman then he would affect change in all of God’s creation because she, as well as the man, had ultimate dominion over that creation. However, the same holds true for Adam (the man). Why didn’t he attack him instead of the women? What was the reason for choosing to approach the woman instead of the man?

The answer seems to lie in the circumstances surrounding God’s commandment to Adam (the man). Consider the following scripture.

The important thing to notice here is that the woman was not present when God gave this command. Another thing to consider is that Adam had much more experience with God regarding the creation and God’s command. It is reasonable to assume that Adam told Eve what God said and the things that God did in the Garden of Eden before she was formed. Therefore, Eve’s experiences and knowledge of God’s commandments would have come second-hand from Adam. This isn’t a bad thing in that Adam’s testimony would have reliable.

So again, why Eve? Consider that the serpent would have had to have a planned attack to increase his chances of success. Consider that the serpent would most likely want to defeat the most resistant of the two. If he defeated the one that would put up the best fight then it would seem reasonable to think that the other would follow in defeat. Let’s read more before we answer the "why Eve" question.

Genesis 3:2 through Genesis 3:4 (NKJV) And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’" Then the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die.

The woman challenged the woman by trying to discredit God in her eyes. However, she puts up a valiant fight. She repeated God’s commandment, as she knew it, just as Jesus defended himself against the Devil in Matthew 4. Now there are some that say that Eve sinned by adding to God’s commandment. There are two problems with this. First, as we said previously, Adam not God most likely told Eve the commandment. Her addition does not change the command at all and the command would have stood just as well. The second thing is that the Bible does not say that Eve committed a sin with her statement. The first sin was the eating of the fruit. So we cannot say that Eve sinned by adding to God’s commandment. Besides, if Adam did tell her what God said, which he most likely did, then he might have told Eve the command in such a way. He might have highlighted the dangers of eating that fruit by even restricting the touching of it. After all, Adam was the one with the personal revelation of God in these matters, not Eve. With that said, it appears that the only disadvantage that the woman had in her encounter with the serpent was her knowledge and experience of God’s word and of God respectively. She was not as prepared as Adam was in her knowledge of God and His word. Therefore, the serpent attacked her, the weak link in knowledge. This doesn’t mean that the woman was inferior as we already concluded. It simply means that between Adam and Eve, that Eve was less prepared to deal with the onslaught of the serpent. Since she and the man were in dominion, her fall would prove just as affective as the man’s fall would.

Now the serpent begins to appeal to her sense of pride. He tries to get her to perceive God as not being straight with her and Adam. He twists what God said to get her to go against God. He presents God as someone who is holding out on her. The woman begins to consider what the serpent says. That is when trouble started.

Now the woman looked at the tree with a new perspective. Notice the parallel to Genesis 2:9; this tree was like the other trees. It was good for food. These words imply that this was the first time Eve considered disobeying God’s command. After all, there was nothing in the tree that was poisonous or harmful, and it was desirable. The issue was one of obedience and disobedience to the Word of God. Once she disobeyed God, all the world changed. (Note, however, that Rom. 5:12 speaks of the sin of Adam rather than the sin of Eve.) Because she did not die, she gave it to her husband. And he ate: Adam sinned with his eyes wide open. He did not even ask a question. He knew as well as she that the fruit was forbidden. Adam and Eve had now broken faith with the Lord, and the world was forever changed.

Also consider that the serpent in effect caused Eve to dispense with God. She no longer needed God because she could be just like him. The serpent tricked (deceived) the woman into relying on herself instead of the revelation that she had of God and his word. She now determined what was right or wrong regardless of what God said. Her mind was turned around and operating in a fashion that would lead her into self-exaltation.

Can we blame the woman for the fall, as Adam tried to do later? No! Notice that Adam was with her! The Bible says nothing about Eve going clear across the garden and giving some of the fruit to him and he not knowing what it was. She gave some of the fruit to Adam who was with her. He watched the entire incidence with his wife and the serpent. He watched his wife get tripped up by the scheme of the serpent and by his cunning words. He watched his wife fall! At any moment, Adam could have intervened and use the authority that he had above all creatures. Instead he watched his wife disobey God and he did the same thing.

The fact that Adam watched as Eve traveled down the road to THEIR death suggests that perhaps he was already thinking about that fruit. Perhaps Adam had been contemplating eating the fruit. Consider that this is only speculation on my part but it does fit with his inactivity. He knew that the fruit was forbidden and he received the commandment directly from HIS CREATOR! Why would he watch while his wife kill herself? Why would he allow the serpent to trick her into doing something that he (and she) knew was forbidden? Why didn’t use his supposedly superiority to jump in and save his wife and thus all of God’s creation? Perhaps he wanted to do the same thing his wife did. Perhaps he wanted to eat the fruit as well.

All of a sudden they realized that they were naked because their eyes were opened. They perceived things differently now. Sin caused death to enter and now they saw things from a different perspective. They were guilty of disobeying God. They chose the road to travel and they would bear the consequences, as well as God’s creation. Remember that in order to plunder a strong man’s house that you must first defeat the strong man. This is exactly what the serpent did. Well why didn’t God intervene? God had given the dominion of his creation to the man and the woman. They were entrusted as stewards to watch over what God created.

It is important to notice the narrative here. The Bible does not say that Eve ate and then went across the garden to give some of the forbidden fruit to her husband. It doesn’t say that the sin occurred when Adam sinned. The narrative suggests that the results of the sin occurred when they both sinned collectively. It is dangerous to suggest that the fall was due to either Adam or Eve. The fall was due to the fact that THEY disobeyed God. The man and the woman disobeyed God so that all of creation, over which they had dominion, was to suffer. The fall was not the fault of Adam or Eve individually. The fall was the fault of both collectively (as one unit).

The one thing that I definitely want to bring out is that the fall was not the woman’s fault. We cannot blame the great fall and subsequent consequences on the woman and hold the man as an innocent bystander. He was just as guilty as she and she was just as guilty as he. The fact is that they both were guilty of sin. It wasn’t the woman’s fault nor was it the man’s fault. IT WAS THE FAULT OF BOTH!

We should also note that Eve’s fall was not due to her inferiority, stupidity, naiveness, or weakness due to sex. Her fall was due to the fact that she tried to be like God, just as Lucifer had already done. The serpent took Adam and Eve down the same road that caused him his demise. Eve fell for the same reason that many fall today, namely PRIDE and the QUEST FOR POWER! But wait! It wasn’t just Eve as I already said. Adam fell for the very same reasons except he wasn’t deceived. He entered into sin premeditated. He seemed to be looking for a way to do it and get away with it. Perhaps that is another reason why the serpent went after Eve first. He may have chosen Eve for his attack because Adam was already in the state that he wanted Eve to be in. Adam was already contemplating sin but couldn’t find a way to do it. Regardless of the reasons, which are speculation at best, the fact is that they both sinned against God.

I would like to digress a little bit here. What was the forbidden fruit? The fact of the matter is that we do not know. People commonly associate the apple with the forbidden fruit, however this seems unlikely. Others have claimed that the forbidden fruit was actually sexual intercourse. This is very unlikely since they would not have been able to procreate without sexual intercourse. Again, we do not know what the fruit was. What we do know about the fruit is the following.

1. It could be eaten

2. It grew on a tree

3. It appeared to be good for food (after disobedience set in)

4. It was forbidden by God

5. We also know that eating this fruit would produce death.

It appears that the death-causing agent was not the fruit itself. The death-causing agent was the act of eating the fruit, which means that it was an act of disobedience.

Why did God put the tree in the garden in the first place if he didn’t want them to eat its fruit? Was God testing Adam and Eve? It is unlikely that God was testing Adam and Eve in the strict sense since he knew what they would do. We must consider a very important attribute of humans that God ordained. We all have a free will. We are all capable of doing whatever we want. The man and the woman in the garden were also capable of doing whatever they wanted because they had a free will. However, unless they really had a choice they would not be able to exercise the free will and their dedication and love of God would go unverified. It is possible that the tree of knowledge of good and evil was the agent of the choice. They could eat of every other tree but not that one. God presented them with the choice. That choice was to obey him or not to obey him. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil provided a means for them to choose.

Sin has entered Adam and Eve so now what happens? Let’s discuss the consequences of the fall of those things pertaining to women since that is the scope of this study. A discussion of the full extent of the fall is left to a study of Genesis in general.

Now the man and the woman avoided God when they heard him coming. They hid themselves because they knew they were guilty of disobeying God and they figured that God would know. Since they knew that they were naked, surely God would know when He saw them.

It is interesting that God called out to Adam and asked where he was. We must assume that God knew where the man was since God is omnipresent. Consider the following scripture relating to this point.

Psalm 139:7 through Psalm 139:12 (NKJV) Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning, And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, Even there Your hand shall lead me, And Your right hand shall hold me. If I say, "Surely the darkness shall fall on me," Even the night shall be light about me; Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You, But the night shines as the day; The darkness and the light are both alike to You.

There is not a place where the presence of the Lord cannot see. Therefore, God’s question to Adam had another purpose. Another possibility is that the sin that the man and the woman committed separated them from the Lord. The Lord’s question wasn’t that of information but more rhetorical in that He acknowledged their separation from Him. Let’s continue.

Notice that God addresses Adam, the man and not the woman. This further illustrates the close relationship that God had with Adam and the close experience that Adam had with God. This doesn’t mean that the women didn’t experience God, however since Adam was first he had more personal contact and experience with the creator. We should also note that the Bible doesn’t say that this walk in the garden by God was a normal thing. Perhaps God came down to walk because He knew what they did, namely sin.

Now Adam was afraid because he heard God and he hid himself. Then Adam blamed the woman for his act of disobedience. Though this highlights the consequences of sin, we can still see more of the purpose of woman in Adam’s statement. He said, "The woman whom you gave to be with me." The purpose of the woman was to be with the man (not given to the man!).

The woman didn’t make up any excuses. She said exactly what happened, namely that she was deceived. Note also that she confessed that she did eat. Throughout this entire ordeal we see that the man (or the woman) was not innocent of the sin. He was wrong and it wasn’t his wife’s fault. As we said previously, it is most likely that Adam was already contemplating disobeying God by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. His wife just provided an opportunity by which he might get away with it.

Many validate the purported curse that is on woman, if indeed there is one, by using this particular verse. Let’s look at this verse in some detail to obtain a better understanding of what it really says. I would like to quote the Young’s Literal Translation of the Bible because it shines much light on the proper way to interpret the first part of this verse.

It is commonly believed that the postmenstrual syndrome (PMS) that women experience is due to this "curse." Some translations, as we have already seen, use the word pain in place of sorrow (the second one). It is also believed that the pain that women experience during childbirth is also due to this "curse." Is this true? Well consider that the scripture does not literally say that. Also, I believe that it is unlikely that God would reduce a major spiritual calamity to a mere physical pain. However, it is evident that the verse does refer to physical pain though that is not the entire scope of that portion of scripture. Let me digress just a bit here for a discussion of pain.

Pain is a normal part of life. Pain is perceived bad but in many cases it is very good for us. Bodily pain is simply a signal from the body that something is wrong regardless of how obvious it is. The more sensitive a portion of the body is then the more it will hurt if injured. Sometimes we have to undergo medical procedures that are very painful and yet they provide something very good for us in the long run. Pain in itself is not evil or bad except for the fact that we don’t like the way it feels. Again this is a tendency for a painless world to be equated with a godly world. We live in a world where there is much pain and suffering. However, much of the pain that we experience is a normal part of life. We learn to deal with it and in some cases live with it. The bottom line is that though pain is very undesirable in most cases, it many times provides a service of good or at best insignificance.

Now originally the LORD said that the man and the woman were blessed (Genesis 1:28). He also told them to have dominion and multiply. They were still blessed. Now does blessing mean a lack of pain or discomfort? We have a tendency to desire a utopia and anything else is not of God. The Bible gave no indication of the physical condition of the woman regarding conception before the fall so perhaps it wasn’t as pain-free as we assume. This idea would lessen the likelihood that the "curse" introduced physical pain on the woman. Also the phrase, "in pain you shall bring forth children" does not necessarily refer to mere physical pain. Some translations use the word sorrow.

Now does the word pain always mean physical pain even today? No! Sometimes it simply means something that is labor intensive, much toil, or even sorrow. For example you may say that you hurt, meaning that you are emotionally sad. You may say that someone is a pain, which means that they are annoying you or pestering you. So just because the word pain is used in some translations of Genesis 3:16 doesn’t mean that the "curse" refers to mere physical pain, especially since the underlying Hebrew is ambiguous in this respect. Consider the following portion of an article taken from "Hard Sayings of the Bible."

But another matter demands our attention in verse 16, the word for conception. This translation is difficult because the Hebrew word HRN is not the correct way to spell conception. It is spelled correctly as HRJWN in Ruth 4:13 and Hosea 9:11. But this spelling in Genesis 3:16 is two letters short, and its vowels are also unusual. The form is regarded by lexical authorities such as Brown, Driver and Briggs as a contraction or even an error. The early Greek translation (made in the third or second century before Christ) read instead HGN, meaning "sighing." The resultant meaning for this clause would be "A snare has increased your sorrow and sighing."

What difference does such a rendering make? The point is simply that this curse cannot be read to mean that the right to determine when a woman will become a mother is placed totally outside her will or that this function has been placed entirely and necessarily in the hands and will of her husband.

Furthermore, it must be remembered that this statement, no matter how we shall finally interpret it, is from a curse passage. In no case should it be made normative. And if the Evil One and not God is the source of the sorrow and sighing, then it is all the more necessary for us to refuse to place any degree of normativity to such statements and describe either the ordeal of giving birth to a child, or the challenge of raising that child, as an evil originating in God. God is never the source of evil; he would rather bless women. Instead, it is Satan who has set this trap.

The next clause strengthens the one we have been discussing by adding "in sorrow [or pain] you will bring forth children." Once again note that bearing children in itself was a blessing described in the so-called orders of creation of Genesis 1:28. The grief lies not so much in the conception or in the act of childbirth itself, but in the whole process of bringing children into the world and raising them up to be whole persons before God.

I believe that this is very consistent with the text and with the previous state of the man and woman. It would seem reasonable to conclude that the fallen state of the woman, as well as the man, would mean that the consequences were more than just physical but encompassed their entire life. They were spiritually separated from God so that the woman would have sorrow when bringing forth children because she no longer was together with God the father. They chose whom to follow and they would have to bear the consequences of that choice. She would bear children and go through the entire process of having children (nurturing, raising, etc.) with sorrow. The more children she would have the more sorrow (pain) she would experience.

Genesis 3:16 also says that the woman’s desire will be towards her husband and he will rule over her. Does this mean that husbands have autonomy over his wife? Does this mean that the man was to rule his wife and to have dominion over her? Consider the following commentary from the Nelson Study Bible.

The word desire can also mean "an attempt to usurp or control" as in Genesis 4:7. We can paraphrase the last two lines of this verse this way: "You will now have a tendency to dominate your husband, and he will have the tendency to act as a tyrant over you." The battle of the sexes has begun. Each strives for control and neither lives in the best interest of the other (see Philippians 2:3, 4).

I would also like to include a portion of an article from "Hard Sayings of the Bible." Afterwards, we will discuss the findings pertaining to a husband ruling over his wife and the wife having sexual lusts for her husband.

The meaning of the second part of the woman’s penalty centers around two very important words that have a most amazing translation history, "desire" and "will rule." Seldom has so much mischief been caused by a translation error that became institutionalized.

Is it true that due to the Fall women naturally exhibit overpowering sexual desires for their husbands? And if this is so, did God simultaneously order husbands to exercise authority over their wives? In one form or another, most conservative interpreters answer both of these questions emphatically yes and point to Genesis 3:16 as the grounds for their answer. But will the text itself bear the weight of such important claims?

The Hebrew word tes�u�qa�h, now almost universally translated as "desire," was previously rendered as "turning." The word appears in the Hebrew Old Testament only three times: here in Genesis 3:16, in Genesis 4:7 and in Song of Songs 7:10. Of the twelve known ancient versions (the Greek Septuagint, the Syriac Peshitta, the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Old Latin, the Sahidic, the Bohairic, the Ethiopic, the Arabic, Aquila’s Greek, Symmachus’s Greek, Theodotion’s Greek and the Latin Vulgate), almost every one (twenty-one out of twenty-eight times) renders these three instances of tes�u�qa�h as "turning," not "desire."

Likewise, the church fathers (Clement of Rome, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Origen, Epiphanius and Jerome, along with Philo, a Jew who died about A.D. 50) seem to be ignorant of any other sense for this word tes�u�qa�h than the translation of "turning." Furthermore, the Latin rendering was conversio and the Greek was apostrophe� or epistrophe�, words all meaning "a turning."

With such strong and universal testimony in favor of "turning," how did the idea of desire ever intrude into the translator’s agenda? Again, it was Katherine C. Bushnell who did the pioneer research on this problem. She traced its genesis to an Italian Dominican monk named Pagnino who translated the Hebrew Bible. Pagnino, according to the infamous biblical critic Richard Simon, "too much neglected the ancient versions of Scripture to attach himself to the teachings of the rabbis." Pagnino’s version was published in Lyons in 1528, seven years before Coverdale’s English Bible. Now except for Wycliffe’s 1380 English version and the Douay Bible of 1609, both of which were made from the Latin Vulgate, every English version from the time of Pagnino up to the present day has adopted Pagnino’s rendering for Genesis 3:16.

The older English Bibles, following Pagnino, rendered this verse as "Thy lust [or lusts] shall pertayne [pertain] to thy husband." Clearly, then, the sense given to the word by Pagnino and his followers was that of libido or sensual desire. The only place that Bushnell could locate such a concept was in the "Ten Curses of Eve" in the Talmud.

It is time the church returned to the real meaning of this word. The sense of Genesis 3:16 is simply this: As a result of her sin, Eve would turn away from her sole dependence on God and turn now to her husband. The results would not at all be pleasant, warned God, as he announced this curse.

Nowhere does this text teach, nor does nature confirm by our observations, that there would now be a tendency for a woman to be driven by a desire for sexual relationships with her husband or with other men. This is both a misrepresentation of the text and a male fantasy born out of some other source than the Bible or human nature. Even if the word is tamed down to mean just an inclination or a tendency, we would be no further ahead. These renderings would still miss the point of the Hebrew. The Hebrew reads, "You are turning away [from God!] to your husband, and [as a result] he will rule over you [take advantage of you]."

Though this text only predicts how some husbands will take advantage of their wives when the wives turn to their husbands after turning away from God, some argue that this second verb should be rendered "he shall rule over you." This would make the statement mandatory with the force of a command addressed to all husbands to rule over their wives.

The Hebrew grammar once again will not allow this construction. The verb contains a simple statement of futurity; there is not one hint of obligation or normativity in this verb. To argue differently would be as logical as demanding that a verb in verse 18 be rendered "It shall produce thorns and thistles." Thereafter, all Christian farmers who used weed killer would be condemned as disobedient to the God who demanded that the ground have such thorns and thistles.

The often-repeated rejoinder to this will rule/shall rule argument is to go to Genesis 4:7: "Sin is crouching at the door; unto you is its turning, but you will [or shall in the sense of must] rule over it." There is no doubt that both the word tes�u�qa�h("turning") and the verb to rule are found in both contexts. But what is debated is the best way to render the Hebrew.

Several suggestions avoid the traditional interpretation that insists on an obligatory sense to the verb to rule. One way predicts that Cain, now governed by sin and pictured as a crouching beast at his door, will rule over him (his brother, Abel). This, however, does not appear to be what the author meant.

A preferred way of handling this phrase would be to treat it as a question. (The absence of the particle introducing questions is a phenomenon witnessed in about half of Hebrew questions.) Hence we would render it "But you, will you rule over it?" or "Will you be its master?" (This interpretation is also favored by H. Ewald, G. R. Castellino and, to some extent, Claus Westermann.)

Even though many hold to the belief that 1 Corinthians 14:34 refers to Genesis 3:16 when it records, "Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says," I cannot agree. When the Corinthians referred to the law (it seems that Paul is answering a previous question they wrote to him), it was to the Jewish law found in the Talmud and Mishnah that they referred. There it was taught that a woman should not speak and that she must be silent, but that is not taught in the Old Testament!

The only conceivable way a person could link up Genesis 3:16 with 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 would be if the Genesis passage said husbands must rule over their wives. Since such a wording of the verse has been proven impossible, this reference should be surrendered. We should lay no stronger burden on God’s people than what is warranted in God’s Word.

Later on in God’s revelation, our Lord will affirm a job subordination within the marriage relationship, and the husband will be answerable to God for the well-being of his wife and family. However, Genesis 3:16 does not carry any of those meanings.

We may conclude, then, that tes�u�qa�h does not refer to the lust or sexual appetite of a woman for a man. Neither does the verb to rule over her express God’s order for husbands in their relationships to their wives.

Now let’s discuss what this all means. Basically the common interpretation for this scripture is not accurate. The woman will turn towards her husband since she turned from God (because of sin). The husband will therefore take advantage of this and usurp authority over her. The relationship that the man and the woman had has gone because of their sin. They will both try to take control of the other.

Men have used this verse through the centuries to justify their belief that women will have a strong sexual lust for their husband and that the husband is the ruler of the wife. Remember that this was not the design of God and even if this was true after the fall, it doesn’t mean that it was normative. That is, God didn’t command or establish that the man would have authority and dominate his wife and that the wife would have strong sexual lusts for her husband. As a result of the fall the headship of God was replaced with self. As a result (of them wanting to be like God), the man and woman would attempt to rule over each other. This is true even today. It isn’t God’s design or his will but it is the way many people operate.

What can we learn from this? We see that it is not the nature of women or the command of God that the woman have sexual lusts for her husband. It is also not true that the husband is the ruler of the wife (as being head of the household).

We also learned that the pains that are associated with birth are not necessarily due to the women’s curse. The pains that the Bible speaks about does refer to some physical pain but it is a lot more than that. It refers to the overall sorrow that would accompany the woman in the process of bringing a child into the world. Also remember that God had not revoked his blessings on the man and the woman and also note that the God never cursed Adam and Eve in the garden. He merely stated the results of their action, which was disobedience. Instead of heeding the voice of God, their creator, they decided to listen to self and disobey God.

There is no reason to believe that God would cause the woman to be inferior or subordinate to the man because of the fall.  He could just as well made the man subordinate since they both sinned.  The scripture seems to imply that they would be subject to each other since they turned away from God.

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