The Bible gives a pass to neither men nor women when it comes to both of them abdicating their God-ordained roles in marriage.

And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.

I Timothy 2:14

Transgression against God in marriage will break the covenant boundaries of God’s protection. That’s why headship and submission are so important. I did not say that headship and submission are “natural” – but they are vital, and the roles of men and women – according to God – cannot be swapped.

Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

Genesis 3:16

Child birth and home-keeping are two areas where women find much joy. Married women’s lives tend to revolve around their children and their husband – “the home.” Even when they are at work outside the home, for most women, their hearts and minds are still occupied throughout the day with the welfare of their children and husbands. Even after Adam and Eve sinned, they were still commanded to be fruitful and multiply – and to be married. The curse that God placed on them because of their sin was that the child-bearing and the marriage relationship would now be marred by pain and sorrow. Pain and sorrow are in this world we live in because sin exists in this world.

The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things; That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.

Titus 2:3-5

Suppose Adam and Eve had never sinned. Women would still have been subordinate, but that would have been the best thing – because their desire would have been to be subordinate to their husbands. (The other part of the curse had to do with pain in child birth. Men don’t experience pain in child birth. This, too, is part of the curse, because the exact thing that women need at that time is empathy, and men have no way of giving it, having never experienced anything like it.) The desire that Eve had – to be subordinate to Adam – still exists in women today, but, because of the sin curse, this desire exists alongside a competing desire to rebel against authority. Women are, in a sense, doubly cursed, because the man you are commanded to be subject to is a fallen sinner like you, and on top of that he will be an abuser (at least mentally and emotionally at times, if not physically), a terrible leader, insensitive, uncommunicative, and prideful. Eve, in her sin, wanted to take the lead in her marriage relationship, and because that was a disobedient and sinful thing to do, God pronounced a curse such that all future wives would have a desire to take that lead, and that desire now competes with their role of subordination, which causes much heartache and many complications in marriage.

Of course, the Gospel has an answer to these problems, which we will look at next time.