Woman has always been a problem to Man. He
just doesn't know what to do with Her, why She is here or why he needs Her. Furthermore,
he suspects that She knows the answer and this bothers him as well. She is a dichotomy, an enigma -- at once the Mother of God, the
highest spiritual attainment, and the Goddess of Love, the epitome of carnal pleasure. She
is Creator and Destroyer.
It is through religion that man tries to explain the world
to himself and himself to himself. For example, the story of Adam and Eve has
traditionally been thought to explain the weakness, if not outright moral turpitude, of
Woman, of which man, to his eternal chagrin, was woefully late to recognize. The story has
been used as a rationale for keeping Woman subjugated, so that no further malefaction
might be perpetrated on the man by Woman.
It would be interesting to know which stories were
male-generated and which female-generated. In this particular story, the emphasis is
definitely female, as we shall see. But as the recording of such literature fell into
man's domain of authority, the female stories became imbued with his point of view and
neuroses.
The Genesis story is divided into several large chunks as
if disjointedly assembled from various tellings. The actual story of the entire Creation
is told in a chunk followed by an inset of the story of the creation of man and woman.
We must first get a picture of the pristine state man
enjoyed to understand the devastation that follows. We must see Adam in his pure naiveté.
He was the first one thought of, the first one created in God's own image. No, this
doesn't mean arms and legs, feet and hands. This means cerebral, with the capability of
thought, the power of reasoning, the ability to create, to take control, to command.
(However, the idea of God as male was perpetrated because the "image" of God was
taken in a physical context in a male-dominated society: God created the biological
"man" because he was cast in the biological image of God as masculine.)
So here then is man, talking with God his literal Creator;
trusting, no worries, in paradise, everything within reach, a vegetarian (Gen. 1:29-30).
Happy, content, joyful, a womb-less child come full grown into the world.
And with one other God-like feature -- the ability to need
a companion. But it is not Adam who sees this need; it is God who detects a malaise
and then tries to remedy it.
At first God brings to Adam all the beasts as he creates
them to see which would make a good companion. Adam gives them names.
But God sees that none of the creatures suffices for a companion. So,
matter-of-factly, God sees the need for a like individual and creates Eve out of man (and
therefore one place removed from God? or even closer connected to God and man being
a part of both?). And man in his naive and trusting virility, accepts her. And
in "innocence," because it is not at this point that God has actually told them
to multiply.
What a curious phenomenon of the telling that we are never
privy to Adam's thoughts. Does he think? But Eve does. Who is no quite
satisfied? The serpent knows which of the two. He knows the enticement that
will completely beguile the women. Knowledge. (What lure would he have offered
Adam?) What good is a mind if it isn't filled with something. To be wise, even
if it means to die. To know the difference between good and evil. (Why does
this mean that to be aware of one's sex is evil and a cause of shame? Another story
no doubt.)
The serpent leaves it to Eve to beguile Adam.
Serpentine subtlety is not needed. How does she convince him to eat? We're
not told. Does she disguise the fruit as something else? Does she use
seduction? Evidently not. The account says simply, "She gave to her
husband and he did eat." Poor Adam. Simple Adam. Weak Adam.
Not only that -- he blames God for his discomfiture, the
state of his affairs. Not only did he not have the moral fortitude or even plain old
common sense to adhere to the commands of God whom, up to this point, he has trusted
implicitly, he blames God for getting him into this mess.
So Adam has learned his lesson. Be careful when you
listen to the woman., And it is at this point that God makes the woman subservient
to the man in the male-oriented telling (Gen. 3:16). Woman must never be in a
position again to lead man astray. But "Adam" always remains simple and
ever susceptible to the voice of "Eve" -- Samson, Macbeth.
But it is the woman -- not the man -- who has the last word
as the account of creation ends. Eve -- not Adam -- gives names to Her sons.
It is Her voice we hear. In the society that produced this account -- why?
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