(ThyBlackMan.com) In a blog entry entitled My Child’s Spoils of War, I made a reference to the fallout between God and Eve with respect to the fall of man. In the proclamation of woman’s punishment (she had not yet been named “Eve”), among other things such as pain during childbirth, God decreed the following in Genesis3:16: ‘… and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.’
A cursory glance thrown to this verse likely attributes this desire to nothing more than an attraction to the opposite sex. However, if we look at how it was coupled with the latter part of the verse, it begs to question that there is a deeper implication of this curse.
The “burning desire” that we so often refer to when we’re passionately and 
dangerously in love with someone rarely involves a concern about said person ruling over us. Granted, it is possible for someone to take advantage of us if we are not mindful of ourselves, but I would argue that this particular curse was setting up a dynamic that we (in the black community especially) seem to witness on a regular basis. One where the woman borders on disrespecting and disregarding the authority of her husband.
Simply stated, as Christ is the head of the Church, so too is man the head of the woman (was not man made first, after all?) – Paul reaffirms this supernatural order in Ephesians 5:23-24:
‘For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and He is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let wives be to their own husbands in every thing.’
In the era of the independent woman, this flies in the face of and contrary to everything they’ve been raised to do. My wife admitted her struggles to trust my judgment because she was raised to “not be dependent on a man” so as to avoid being feeble-mindedly over dependent on defining her success by her ability to find a man. Being the eldest of two female siblings as well, her father passed on many life lessons to her that he couldn’t pass on to a son. When we purchased our first home, I can recall her saying “I don’t need you” with respect to her ability to buy the home on her own. Since I was transitioning from engineering to the education field and recovering from being laid off for eight months, I saw where she was coming from. It wasn’t from a place of malice or spite (though I can only attribute the fact that I didn’t flip out and lose my cool to the Lord!).
In respect to this Genesis scripture, this mentality that my wife illustrates has a deeper root than how she was raised: it is linked back to Adam’s woman.
If a more than capable and equal partner (the woman) is made subject to someone else who is capable of making bad choices, that’s kind of a slight, wouldn’t you say? Especially so, if the bad choice that your partner made is stemming from your persuasion! God is a just God but that doesn’t mean His punishment(s) are always well received.
Women seem to collectively gasp and cringe whenever the nuptials are brought up with respect to “submission.” It has only been until recent – with the advent of pastors recalling that as the husband must submit to Christ and the wife sees this submission in his headship, so too must she submit unto the husband – that this has been given a warmer welcome. Mutual submission unto God means that if the wife is submitting to a husband who is submitting to God then she, in turn, is submitting to God.
This works in theory but the application of it?!!… is another story! Considering how differences in personality and beliefs coupled peer influences and complicated by the presence of spousal abuse is enough to skew this concept; factoring in this curse of desire sheds more light on the difficulty of the matter for the successors of the woman who would later be named Eve in verse 20.
Just when you thought the dynamics between men and women was already complicated enough, right?!! What say you? Is this hogwash and balderdash or could there be some theological sense in this tomfoolery? Input is welcome and definitely to be desired…
Staff Writer; Reggie Legend
Can find more about this writer over at; http://www.steelwaterspoetry.com
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