I went with my sister last week to “Taming of the Shrew” at Utah’s Shakespeare Festival. We were especially happy to be there, for it was thelast week of plays to be shown in the old theater built under the direction of Fred Adams. He isn’t important to many people, but to us he is, for our mom took classes from him in the year he was planning the first production. She sat in the grass at his feet, sewing jewels on costumes while he shared Shakespeare stories, for credit in that class.
Now, many years later, the campus of what used to be College of Southern Utah, now Southern Utah University, is building a new and larger theater to house the festival. We enjoyed the play, though the actors were no longer strictly students from the theater program.
In the last scene, Kate tells the other new wives that they owe obedience to their husbands, who were their lords and masters. To that, I must disagree. In the medieval period, women were chattels who were taught they must give obedience to the men who held power in their lives, fathers, brothers, husbands, even sons. They had no rights to property. No rights of choice of husband. No rights at all, beyond producing an appropriate male heir—and if none were produced, it was all her fault.
Beyond the genetics of it all, I argue with the faulty logic of the men and priests who read of Adam and Eve in the book of Genesis, then blamed all the troubles of mankind on Eve. They claimed women were sinful, sexual temptresses, easily tempted of the devil, and therefore needing to be controlled.
I totally disagree!
Eve was beguiled by Satan, told the only way to move forward in her progression was to eat the forbidden fruit. She did eat; Adam freely chose to eat it after she did. The consequence of this action was exactly as God told them it would be when he placed them in the Garden of Eden—they died. Not an immediate physical death, that death happened many years later, but they died.
Their immediate consequence was a death of being in the presence of their God. He no longer walked and talked with them face to face. By being cast out of the garden, they lost the opportunity to learn and grow at His feet. Now they were required to live “alone”—away from Him. But now, they could reproduce and have children.
Eve was commanded to listen to her husband. Together they were to face the unknown and build a life in a new world. Adam had the lead, it was his responsibility to direct their actions as he prayed to the Father for direction. Nowhere in Genesis is there anything suggested that Eve was evil, a sinful temptress, overly sexual, or needing to be controlled like a senseless, ignorant child.
Give Eve the credit she deserves. She joined with Adam in making this earth a pleasant place for all her posterity, including you, including all those men who denigrate her. She made a tough choice—and she has paid for it. Women today need not continue to pay for her choice as overbearing men abuse them. Because of Eve’s choice, you exist.
What do you think? Do women require control? Did they ever? Please respond in the comments.
For more about Eve’s life after Eden, watch for Eve, First Matriarch, coming soon.
