Three separate issues need to be addressed:

(1) The proper interpretation of 3:16a: What is the meaning of the woman’s “desire”? Is the woman’s desire “for” or “against” the man?
(2) Do the judgments of Genesis 3 represent a disruption or a restoration of the created order?
(3) Is there any evidence that the man’s “ruling over” the woman is part of God’s intention in the original created order?

I will address all three in order.

Is the Woman’s Desire “For” or “Against” Her Husband?

How to interpret the woman’s “desire” has become a controverted issue in contemporary biblical scholarship. In my book, I quoted Wayne Grudem’s position similar to Colvin’s: “The distortion was that Eve would now rebel against her husband’s authority and Adam would misuse that authority to rule forcefully and even harshly over Eve” (Icons of Christ, 64). Against Grudem, I wrote, “the desire of the woman is for (not ‘against’) her husband.” I acknowledged in a footnote (Icons of Christ, 362) that I was in disagreement with the new ESV translation: “Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.” I did not summarize my reasons for disagreeing with Grudem and the ESV in the short summary of my book, but I will do so here.

Important for the contemporary discussion is a very short essay by Susan Foh: “What is the Woman’s Desire?” The Westminster Theological Journal 37 no 3 (Spr 1975): 376-383. The following is a summary:

Foh embraces something like the later position of “complementarianism,” and is writing against what she calls (in the very first words of the essay) the “current issue of feminism in the church” (Foh, 376).

Foh begins with (but does not defend at any length) the following “complementarian” assertion: “The rule of the husband, per se, is not a result of or punishment for sin. The headship of the husband over his wife is a part of the creation order.” She basis this assertion on her interpretation of 1 Cor. 11:8 and 1 Tim. 2:13a: “Man is created first; he is the source of the woman’s existence; and she is created for the sake of the man. Therefore, the head of the woman is man” (Foh, 378). Each of these assertions is problematic, and I devote a chapter each in my book to 1 Cor. 11 and 1 Tim. 2:13. Note that Foh bases her claim concerning the “headship” (by which she means “authority”) of the husband over his wife not on a careful reading of Genesis 1 to 3, but on a controverted reading of two passages in the NT.

Foh is concerned to correct a complementarian assertion (echoed more recently by Grudem among others) that she finds problematic – that the (implied) subordination of woman to man is founded in creation, but that described in Gen. 3:16b is “despotic” or “tyrannous” (Foh, 379). Unlike Grudem, Foh does not find the Gen. 3:16 rule “despotic.”

Foh acknowledges that the Hebrew word for “desire” (teshuqah) occurs only three times in the Old Testament (Gen. 3:16; 4:7; Song of Songs 7:10(11)), but has no detailed discussion of the Song of Songs passage. Because the context of Song of Songs 7:10 is “ambiguous,” she claims, it is impossible to determine the precise meaning of teshuqah “in this case” (Foh, 379).

Foh’s argument is the following:

The Hebrew for Gen. 3:16b and 4:7b is “the same,” except for person and gender (Foh, 379-380).

In Gen. 4:7, “sin’s desire is to enslave Cain – to possess or control him, but the Lord urges Cain to overpower sin, to master it” (Foh, 380-381).

“The woman has the same sort of desire for her husband that sin has for Cain, a desire to possess or control him. This desire disputes the headship of the husband. As the Lord tells Cain what he should do, i.e., master or rule sin, the Lord also states what the husband should do, rule over his wife” (Foh, 381-382, my emphasis).

Because of the fall, the man must fight for “headship” over his wife, but sin has “corrupted” both the wife’s willing submission, as well as the husband’s “loving headship.” The words “he shall rule over you” cannot be understood in the indicative because every husband does not rule over his wife, as Cain did not rule over sin. Context determines that the woman’s desire and the husband’s mastery are “antithetical” (Foh, 382).

Foh concludes that the woman’s desire is to “contend with” her husband for leadership: “This desire is a result of and a just punishment for sin, but it is not God’s decretive will for the woman. Consequently, the man must actively seek to rule his wife” (Foh, 383, my emphasis).

Foh concludes that her interpretation is preferable because (1) it confirms God’s original intent for marriage that the husband rule the wife, but that the wife rebels against this leadership; (2) permits the correct understanding of teshuqah; (3) explains the parallel between Gen. 3:16b and 4:7b; (4) explains why husbands do not rule their wives; “he shall rule over you” is not an indicative, but (presumably) an imperative (Foh, 383)

Although Foh enters into limited discussion with some other authors, this is the extent of the positive case for her position. In essence, (1) Gen. 3:16 and 4:7 are exact verbal parallels; (2) 3:16 must be understood in light of 4:7 rather than the reverse (not argued, but assumed); (3) Since sin’s “desire” is against Cain, the woman’s “desire” must be against her husband; (4) Since Cain’s duty is to rule over sin, it must be the husband’s duty to rule over his wife.

How Have Egalitarians Responded to the Foh Essay?

There has not been a single consistent response to the Foh essay. Two of the writers with whom I am generally in agreement accept Foh’s initial premise concerning the parallel between Genesis 3:16 and 4:7. Richard S. Hess (whom I cite throughout the Genesis chapter in Icons of Christ) writes: “Applying the basic hermeneutical principle of translating an expression in one context by the same expression in a nearby and related context, the text then depicts a struggle of wills between men and women. On this point, Foh seems to have gotten it right and to have made an important contribution.”¹ Philip B. Payne does not cite Foh, but writes that the meaning of the Hebrew in 3:16b “closely parallels” Gen. 4:7.²

However, neither Hess nor Payne agrees with the complementarian conclusions that Foh derives from the comparison. Hess disagrees with Foh’s conclusion that Gen. 3:16b should be read as an imperative: “[T]he parallel with Genesis 4:7 and Cain’s receiving advice to ‘rule over’ is not decisive for solving this question (contrary to Foh) . . . . Rather, Genesis 3:16-17 is best understood as a description of the new order of things, of how life will be lived as a result of the Fall, rather than how it should be lived. It is not a command for one sex to rule over the other any more than Genesis 3:17-19 is a command for all Israelite men to be farmers or a prohibition of weed-killer. These are not God’s decision on how things must be, such that violating them would be sin”(Hess, 93).

Payne writes: “Every other result of the fall is future, so in this context the imperfect naturally has its future sense, just as rendered in virtually all versions.” He concludes: “The fall transformed the relationship of Adam and Eve from equality into a power struggle” (Payne, 50-51).

I largely follow Hess and Payne elsewhere in my book, but did not do so in their agreement with Foh that “desire” in Gen. 3:16a should be read as an antagonistic desire, a struggle of wills of the first woman against the first man. Why not?

First, Foh’s reading has not been universally received.

Terence Fretheim writes: “The ‘desire’ of the woman for the man remains unclear. It could involve a desire for mastery (as with this verb in 4:7), which will be thwarted by the husband. More likely, it means that, despite the pains of childbirth, she will still long for sexual intimacy.”³ (my emphasis)

More important, a recent study seriously undermines Foh’s argument.

Colvin quotes me: “Witt thinks that the woman’s ‘desire for (not against) (64) her husband is a neutral or beneficial thing.” The paragraph from which Colvin quotes contains a footnote reference to Claude Mariottinni, “Genesis 3:16 and the ESV,” October 4, 2016. I wish Colvin had read Mariottini’s blog post, which summarizes an essay that it is certainly the definitive study on this question:

Andrew A. Macintosh, “The Meaning of Hebrew תשׁוקה,” Journal of Semitic Studies 61 (2016): 365-387

Macintosh’s essay is far more detailed than Foh’s and (without mentioning her by name), raises serious questions about her interpretation. In the essay, Macintosh does a detailed study of the word תשׁוקה (teshuqah), translated “desire,” and which occurs in the Old Testament only in Gen. 3:16, 4:7, and Song of Songs 7:11(10). Macintosh studies how the word is used in the Hebrew Bible, how it was translated in the LXX (Greek translation of the OT), in the Peshitta, how it was understood in Rabbinic writings, in the Dead Sea Scrolls, in Arabic, and in the Quran. In this literature, Macintosh does not find a single example of the Genesis 3:16 passage being translated “Your desire shall be against your husband.”

Of the three occurrences in the Hebrew Bible, two are concerned with the intimate relation between a man and a woman: Gen. 3:16 and Song of Songs 7:11. Even in the ESV translation, Song of Songs 7:11 reads “I am my beloved’s, and his desire is for me.” To translate this as the beloved’s desire is “against me” would make no sense in the Song of Songs. Significantly, Foh has no detailed discussion of this verse in her essay, claiming that it is “ambiguous,” and its meaning “impossible to determine.” To the contrary, its meaning is fairly self-evident. Macintosh notes that several ancient versions translate Song of Songs 7:11 something along the lines of “I am my beloved’s, and his attention is for me” (Macintosh, 367-368).

Concerning Gen. 3:16, Macintosh sees an aetiological parallel in Gen. 2:20, where the creation of the woman provides the man’s want for a helper suitable for him. The judgment on Eve is set against the background of the “complementarity” of the sexes. The woman’s joy is found in marital bliss, in motherhood and children, but now there is pain and subordination. Eve’s teshuqah is like that of the male lover in the Song of Songs; it denotes an “aspect of the love and commitment that a woman entertains for her mate.” Macintosh examines several ancient translations, and finds Targum (Jonathan) most satisfactory: “Your response shall be to your husband.” He concludes that the evidence for both Song of Songs 7:11 and Gen. 3:16 suggests that teshuqah is not physical desire, but “devoted attention, the preoccupation of a lover for the object of his or her love” (370). In Genesis, there is no evidence of “inherent inequality” between the sexes, and any element of obedience is voluntary “compliance,” a “gracious gift,” “freely granted.” The phrase that follows – “and he shall rule over you” – is an element of God’s “judgment on Eve,” but does not affect her “fulfillment as a wife” (Macintosh, 368-371).

Macintosh agrees with a current consensus that Gen. 4:7 is “taken from” Gen. 3:16, and is a “deliberate adaptation of the earlier version” (Macintosh, 371). Crucial for the discussion is that in Song of Songs 7:11 and Gen. 3:16 there is a literal description of the relation between two people, while Gen. 4:7 is figurative: “[T]he abstract usage of Gen. 4:7 is dependent upon the more personal, and . . . in this sense, it is secondary” (Macintosh, 366). The verse uses a “trope” to explain the danger posed by Cain’s envy. As the serpent is the masculine vehicle of a “simile” earlier, sin is now the “feminine tenor” of it. Sin lies in rest for Cain waiting for an opportunity to entrap him. Telling against the traditional translation of teshuqah is that sin’s “desire” (unlike Eve’s) is not conjugal. If “devoted attention” or “preoccupation” is the correct translation, then the “craftiness” of sin expresses the same “single-minded concentration as the loving care and devotion shown by Eve for her husband and by the lover of Canticles for his [beloved]” (Macintosh, 372).

Macintosh finds confirmation of his reading of teshuqah as “devoted attention” elsewhere, for example, in seven examples from the Dead Sea Scrolls. In particular, three verses from the War Scroll speak of angels of darkness whose teshuqah is for the “laws of darkness” (1 QM 13:12). 1 QM 15:10 refers to a wicked congregation whose deeds are in darkness, and to it goes their teshuqah. 4QInstrb 2.4 has a passage addressed to a husband, who is told about his bride, “towards you is her teshuqah.” In all of these examples, “concern” or “preoccupation” provides a better sense than desire (Macintosh, 375-379). (In none of these cases would it make sense to translate teshuqah as oppositional or “contrary to”).

Macintosh concludes: “In summary, I conclude that ‘desire’ is not a proper rendering of the Hebrew word תשׁוקה in the Hebrew Bible or the Dead Sea Scrolls. Rather, on the evidence of comparative philology and of the ancient versions, ‘concern, preoccupation, (single-minded) devotion, focus’ appears to be more likely” (Macintosh, 385).

While Macintosh suggests that “devoted attention” is a better translation than “desire,” his case against the kind of translation found in the ESV seems definitive. Eve’s desire (“devotion,” “single-minded attention”) is “for” her husband, not against him.

Indirectly supporting this position is a description of the relationship between wives and husbands in the Hebrew Bible that I had summarized from Jewish scholar Tikva Frymer-Kensky: “There is no inherent conflict between men and women as such in the Old Testament. Women are portrayed as loving and supporting their husbands” (Icons of Christ, 67).

Frymer-Kensky writes: “The Bible depicts harmonious relationships between husbands and wives, presenting women as supportive of their husbands. . . . The divine fiat of Genesis 3:16 ‘your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you’ describes and validates a social reality in which women are subordinate to men. On the other hand, the Bible does not justify this inequality by reference to any putative deficiency or inferiority of women. Genesis recognizes the fact of male dominance, and believes that women are willing to accept this situation because of the love they feel for their husbands.”⁴

I conclude this section by noting significance differences between the woman’s “desire” for the man in Gen. 3:16 and sin’s “desire” for Cain in 4:7, which Foh (and those influenced by her) simply do not seem to notice.

First, in Genesis 1 and 2, the relationship between the man and the woman is portrayed as complementary. She is “bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh.” She is created to relieve his loneliness. She is a “helper fit for him.” Genesis 1 to 3 portrays the relation of the man and the woman as ideally one of harmony. In contrast, sin and Cain are inherently antagonistic. Sin is in no way a partner for Cain, “bond of his bone and flesh of his flesh.” Sin is not a “helper for” Cain, “corresponding to him.” No “restored creation” could return sin to a state of harmony with Cain.

Second, sin’s “desire,” even as portrayed by Foh, is not like the “desire” of Eve. Sin is portrayed as “desiring” Cain by tempting him, by enticing him. According to complementarians, Eve’s desire is to “disobey” Adam, to reject his authority, not to entice him. The complementarian claim to a parallel simply does not work.

Despite the verbal parallels between Gen. 3:16 and 4:7, the Genesis author would thus seem to be using this language not to draw a parallel to, but to make a contrast between Eve and Adam on the one hand, and sin and Cain on the other.

The “desire” of the woman toward (not against) the man and of sin toward (not against) Cain are both examples of “sustained attention toward” but in very different ways. Eve desires something good – the restored unity and harmony of her original relation with Adam, now lost. Sin desires something evil – to entice Cain (much like the serpent in chapter 3), but for purposes of destruction, not harmony. In 3:16, it is the man who (negatively) resists the woman’s desire for restored harmony by “ruling over her,” furthering the disharmony. Cain, who should rather resist the enticement of sin, rather succumbs and gives in to temptation.

It would seem then that the two passages have similar verbal structures, but do so to provide contrary examples. Eve’s desire for her husband is to be emulated, while Adam’s “ruling over” her is not; Sin’s desire is to be resisted, but Cain’s failure to “rule” over it (like Eve’s earlier yielding to the serpent) leads to disaser.

Do the judgments of Genesis 3 represent a disruption or a restoration of the created order?

Colvin’s claim is original, if nothing else. Complementarians like Wayne Grudem describe the judgments of Genesis as “curses” on both the man and the woman. Because Grudem considers the judgments of Genesis 3 to be “curses,” he cannot interpret v. 16 as a neutral description (or restoration) of the man’s original authority over the woman. Rather, Grudem claims that Adam’s response to the woman’s aggressive attempt to resist his role – “Your desire will be against your husband” – will be an aggressive “rule that was forceful and sometimes harsh.” Eve now resists her husband’s authority and Adam now misuses the authority to rule harshly over Eve.⁵ The problem with Grudem’s interpretation is that the Hebrew word for “rule” in 3:16 is simply the most common word for “rule” and has no negative connotations. It does not imply “bad rule” (Payne, 51). Colvin departs from the usual complementarian interpretation to claim that the “rule” of the man over the woman in v. 16 does not introduce anything new, but is rather a “restoration” of original creation order. (He agrees with Foh in this respect.)

In contrast to both traditional complementarians (Grudem) and Colvin, I would argue that the judgments of Genesis 3 are not curses (Grudem) on the man and the woman, but neither are they restorations of created order. Rather, they are the negative consequences of living in a fallen world.

In Icons of Christ, I had distinguished between an original “harmony” and a “disruption”: a contrast between (1c) mutuality, cooperation, and fruitfulness with (1d) conflict, subordination and struggle; a contrast between (2b) companionship, harmony, and equality with (2c) loss of companionshp, division, hierarchy; a contrast between (3b) stewardship and fruitfulness, with (3c) hard labor and pain; a contrast between (4a) a curse on the serpent and the land, and (4b) judgments, which are not punishments, on the man and the woman.

Colvin claims that in each case, there is not “disruption,” but “restoration and reiteration of the created order.”

Adam’s task was to work the ground, but he now does so with difficulty.

The serpent was to be under the dominion of humans, but now the subjection is more severe.

The woman’s task was to bear children, but now childbearing is more difficult.

The woman was to be in subordination to the man, but now the subordination is more difficult because she resists the man (whose responsibility is to “rule over” her).

I find this interpretation questionable for the following reasons.

1) All of the judgments “describe something new and not preexisting,” and they are “disastrous news for the party addressed” (Payne, 50-51). The non-personal judgments (a “cursed ground” producing thorns and thistles to be worked with painful labor and increased labor and pain during childbirth) are hardly “restorations” of creation. The personal judgments laid on the serpent and the couple are not restorations either, but introductions of conflict. The serpent is “cursed” above all other animals, and there is now enmity between the serpent and the woman (along with her offspring). Regardless of whether one understands the desire of the woman as being either for or against her husband, the consequence is a conflict that disrupts the original harmony in which the woman was created as a partner to relieve the man’s loneliness, whom he recognized as “bond of my bone and flesh of my flesh.” Instead of mutuality and harmony, the woman either yearns for that original unity and is instead dominated by her husband (my interpretation) or the woman revolts against her husband’s authority only to be “ruled over” by him (Colvin). On neither interpretation is this a restorations of the original creation, but its undoing. Conflict between the man and the woman is not the harmony of the original creation.

2) In the narrative structure of the texts, each negative judgment contrasts with a positive description of the original creation.

Positively, the man’s responsibility was to work and care for the garden (Gen. 2:15).
Negatively, the man must now tend the land through painful labor (Gen. 3:17-19).

Positively, the serpent was one of the animals that God had formed from the ground, and whom the man had named (Gen. 2:19).
Negatively, there is now enmity between the serpent and the woman and her offspring (Gen. 3:15).

Positively, the woman is the mother of all living (Gen. 3:20).
Negatively, the woman’s childbearing will be severe (Gen. 3:16).

Given this pattern, Gen. 3:16 must be a negative contrast to the earlier description of woman’s creation.

Positively, the woman is the partner fit for the man (Gen. 2:20-23).
Negatively, the woman will desire for her husband (as he had originally desired her as his fit partner), but he will instead rule over her (Gen. 3:16).

If Gen. 3:16 were a return to creation order, the order of the phraseology would have to be reversed. Not “your desire will be for your husband”, but “he will rule over you,” but rather:

Positively, “Your husband will rule over you,” but,
Negatively, “Your desire will be for [or rather ‘against’] your husband.”

3) If Colvin’s reading is correct that each of the judgments of chapter 3 is a “restoration” of creation rather than a disruption, then just as the man’s ruling over the woman is not simply a description, but a divine imperative, so also the other judgments would not simply be consequences of the fall into sin, but would have to be divine imperatives as well. The use of fertilizers or machinery or other labor-saving devices would then be just as much a violation of the divine will as a woman’s disobedience of her husband’s authority. Equally prohibited would be the use of painkillers or other medical interventions to make childbearing less painful or less difficult. There actually were those in the past who questioned the use of anesthetics during childbirth as a violation of Gen. 3:16, but fortunately that is no longer the case. In the words of Philip Payne: “We should not foster, but rather alleviate, the consequences of the fall, including the husband’s rule over his wife” (Payne, 50).

Is there any evidence that the man’s “ruling over” the woman is part of God’s intention in the original created order?

Biblical scholars regularly point out that there is no mention of female subordination to men in the creation narratives of Genesis 1 and 2, and the first mention of subordination occurs in Gen. 3:16b. A plain sense reading of the text concludes that any subordination is a consequence of the fall into sin, and like other effects of sin, should be corrected as much as possible. As I pointed out in my previous essay, complementarians attempt to address the lack of evidence by looking for “hints” of subordination (such as creation order), and I addressed some of these “hints” in that essay. Colvin does not repeat the usual “hints,” but instead breaks from the usual complementarian position by interpreting Gen. 3:16 not as an exacerbation of male authority, but rather a restoration of creation order. To make this argument, he first follows the claim of the Susan Foh essay (although he does not cite it specifically) that the woman’s desire is antagonistic to her husband rather than for her husband, and, second, that the husband’s rule over the woman is neither abusive (contrary to the usual complementarian reading), nor the consequence of sin (the egalitarian position), but rather a restoration of creation order. I have challenged both claims above.

What follows will quickly summarize the arguments against male authority over woman being part of creation order.

First, the text mentions the authority of the man only after the fall, and as a direct consequence of sin. In the words of Payne: “Since the text identifies this as a consequence of the fall, it must describe something new and not preexisting, just like the other effects of the fall in 3:14-19.” These effects are descriptive, and not prescriptive. Moreover, they are “bad news.” Again, quoting Payne: “Since man’s ruling over woman is a result of the fall, man must not have ruled over woman before the fall. It would be out of harmony with every other consequence of the fall to interpret man’s rule over woman as something good that should be fostered. This passage no more teaches this than that it teaches that women ought to have pain in childbirth” (Payne, 50, 51).

Second, as noted above, in every case in which a negative judgment is pronounced on either the serpent, the woman, or the man, there is an explicit positive statement elsewhere in the text to which it contrasts. Positively, the man tills the earth; positively, the serpent would be one of the animals named by the man. Positively, the woman is the mother of all humanity. Outside of the judgment statement of Gen. 3:16, the single positive statement that refers to the woman in relation to the man occurs in 2:20-23, where she is described as the “helper corresponding to” (‘ezer kenegdo) him, the one who relieves his loneliness. There is no positive statement anywhere in the account of the woman’s creation that refers to male authority.

Given the general pattern, Gen. 3:16 must then be a negative contrast to 2:20-23. If my interpretation (agreeing with Macintosh, Frymer-Kensky, Phyllis Trible, Terence Fretheim, and Carrie Miles) is correct, the woman desires the lost unity of the original creation described in 2:20-23. Where she originally relieved the man’s loneliness, there now exists a state of conflict in which he rules over her instead of recognizing her as his complementary partner. However, even egalitarians who accept the Foh interpretation understand that the conflict is not a return to creation, but the introduction of something new and unfortunate. Payne writes: “The fall transforms the relationship of Adam and Eve from equality into a power struggle” (Payne, 51). Hess writes, “the text then depicts a struggle of the wills between men and women” (Hess, 92). I myself had written: “The woman might well resist such domineering, but there is nothing in the text to suggest that the man exercised any kind of authority over the woman before the entrance of sin.” Rather, such a domineering of man over woman is a result of the breakdown of the harmony between man and woman that existed before sin” (Icons of Christ, 64).

Colvin has one last arrow in his quiver. He states (as I had acknowledged repeatedly in my book) that “No ancient Israelite woman lived in a society in which the sexes had become attenuated by technology, modern feminist and egalitarian ideologies.” In consequence, “[t]hey did not read the creation account as a story of primeval egalitarianism.” Colvin’s claim here is that no pre-modern could possibly have read the creation accounts of Genesis 1 to 3 as a story of “primeval egalitarianism.” So presumably, no ancient writer could have written such an account.

As I pointed out in my book, however, both John Chrysostom and Martin Luther read an egalitarian account in Genesis 1 to 3. As I quote Chrysostom: “she was not subjected as soon as she was made; nor when He brought her to the man, did she either hear any such thing from God . . . but of rule or subjection he nowhere made mention. . . . But when she had made ill use of her privilege . . . she is justly told for the future, “thy turning shall be to thy husband” (Icons of Christ, 52). Chrysostom and Luther were both pre-modern people who had not been exposed to “feminist and egalitarian ideologies.” If Chrysostom and Luther could have found an egalitarian account in the text, presumably an ancient author could have written it there.

As I read Colvin’s claim, I am reminded of Sherlock Holmes’s “curious incident” of the dog that didn’t bark in the night. The author of the original creation narrative of Genesis 2 and 3 certainly lived in a culture in which men had authority over women. He (presumably a male) did not hesitate to describe numerous characteristics of ancient agricultural society as consequences of sin, e.g., hard physical labor for men, painful births for women. Given prevailing cultural assumptions about the relationships between men and women in pre-modern societies, there would have been nothing whatsoever to have prevented our author from mentioning male authority and female subordination as God’s will in the original creation. And, yet, like the dog in the night, there is silence. Terence Fretheim writes: “The ‘rule’ of the man over the woman is part and parcel of the judgment on the man as much as the woman. This writer understood that patriarchy and related ills came as a consequencr of sin rather than being the divine intention. How easy it would have been to build patriarchy into the created order!” (Fretheim, 363). How easy indeed. But instead . . . silence.