"...Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you."
Oh, Eve, what did you do? I probably shouldn't be so hard on you, because if you hadn't been the one to eat the fruit, I no doubt would have. But it's sad to think of what marriage would have been like if sin hadn't messed it up. And while all I've ever known is marriage, however good, tainted by sin, poor Eve actually knew what a perfect marriage was like - and then she lost it.
Were we created to be equal partners? I don't know. I know man and woman were given different areas of strength and giftedness, and were designed to complement each other. But was man originally intended to be the head of the household? I'm going to just take a guess and say yes. Marriage is a picture of Christ and the Church. So with that in mind, I tend to think Adam was meant to lead his family. The curse refers to woman's feelings about man's headship.
This part of the curse is different from the others. Pain in childbirth and difficulty in providing for a family are circumstances outside of our control. But a woman's desire for her husband's role is a heart issue. It seems to me that this is a part we could, and should, be able to manage (with God's help).
But we don't. We try to be better, smarter, faster, stronger. We nag and manipulate to get our way. When we do "let" him make the decisions, we're quick to say "I told you so" if things don't work out. We play all the games women are so great at playing, in an attempt to get the upper hand. Should the man be a controlling dictator? No, and there are other places in the Bible that support this (Ephesians 5, for example). Marriage should be a partnership. There should be mutual love and respect. But we women are quick to gloss over the fact that God placed man as head of the household and told woman to submit. In a godly marriage, that is how it should be.
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