Adam and Eve, Lucas Cranach

Brittany writes:

I have two questions. Do you think God sees men and women as equals? And why do people emphasize female chastity over male chastity? For example in India the ideal woman is a virgin but a man doesn’t have to be a virgin.

Laura writes:

In answer to your first question, there are only two possible ways of ascertaining God’s view of men and women: revelation and reason.

Let’s start with revealed truth. Here we know that God sees men and women as absolutely equal in dignity. They are both made in His image and have free will. This is what makes human nature partly divine, what distinguishes a human being from the rest of creation: the human soul and free will. Genesis makes this equality unshakably clear from the beginning of our sacred history, which is why the Judeo-Christian view is so momentous and superior to that of cultures that do not explicitly define male and female or that view either women or men as spiritually inferior.

Some argue that the symbolism of Genesis implies male superiority. There is no basis for this claim. It is feminist gobbledy-gook. The fact that Eve was made last could more reasonably indicate her superiority than her inferiority (in light of the whole, it obviously indicates neither).  After all, Adam was made after lower forms of creation. That Eve was made from Adam’s rib could also point to her superiority; after all, Adam was made from the dust of the earth. That she is a “help meet” does not signify servitude but worthiness. No, in the most important sense they are the same, of equal status, created to love and to know God, to rule over the rest of creation, to choose obedience to God or rebellion.

Eve’s rebellion is not less significant than Adam’s; it is more. Look at this. See what it says of the power of women, about the implications of their freedom. She succumbed to evil first and must take on a heavy share of suffering, more so than man:

 “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.”

God did not make Eve to be ruled. It is only when we grasp this essential idea, that the necessary submission of women to men is not what God intended and not what He wished, nor is it in accord with their ultimate destiny, that we can make sense of  human history.

 From revelation, we also know that both men and women are powerful actors in culture. The Biblical prophets, kings and priests are men but they are there to speak to and lead all of their people, male and female. They do not direct their message and energy to men only. The Angel Gabriel appears to Mary alone at the Annunciation to ask for her consent to become the mother of Christ. He does not ask for Joseph’s permission, as if she were his chattel. Mary’s fate at that moment is in her hands alone. The fate of the world is in her hands. There is no more powerful affirmation of the stature of women. In the Book of Revelation, a woman appears to John clothed in the light of the sun and crowned by stars, a glorious vision that exceeds in meaning the mythical apparitions of pagan goddesses.

Reason also tells us that God made men and women equal in their essential power. We don’t have the same need to prove the power of men; it is evident in events. The power of women is like an undercurrent, a subterranean aquifer from which all of culture and psychology is fed and watered. Would God have made mothers inferior to their offspring? Would God have made lovers inferior to each other? Would God have trusted the welfare of a superior creature to an inferior one? Women create or destroy. All of us know this. It is knowledge we carry within us. We know we have lived on those underground waters. We know we are the creation of women, especially our mothers. Scientifically, we can prove this influence. We can see how culture and the psyche are affected.

Regarding your second question, female sexuality is and always will be more significant.

On a practical level, a code of female chastity is the only way to build trust between men and women. It’s the only way men can be reasonably assured that the offspring they care for are their own. A woman always knows who her children are. A man does not. He must take it on trust. This trust in the personal sphere is the basis for civilization; all else builds up from there. This trust protects children, who are always more often neglected or discarded in a culture of female promiscuity.

Also, on a practical plane, women can never evade the consequences of conception in the way men sometimes can, another reflection of biology. Promiscuity actually makes them ill too, as we can see from the current epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases, a major cause of infertility.

But let’s consider female chastity on a spiritual and moral plane. As Alice von Hildebrand has wrote in her essay, “The Privilege of Being a Woman,” the woman is a secret garden. Her sexual organs themselves are veiled and enclosed, which signifies their sacred dimension. Her body is the scene of creation. Even a woman who has never conceived or cannot conceive possesses this physical holiness. If you view the conception of a human being as purely a material event, her body does not resonate with this higher meaning. But even hard-core materialists have a difficult time evading this truth. They too find themselves drawn to the mystery of feminine beauty. They cannot explain what it means or why sex is more spiritual and consequential to women than to men, why it affects them on a deeper level.

Here we arrive at an important point. Sex means more to a woman. She cannot be as casual about it as men without violating her nature. The emphasis on female chastity is not some crude patriarchal imposition, some power play by men, but cultural recognition of this truth and of the highest aspects of femininity. Hildebrand writes:

The union of body and soul is particularly close in a woman’s body. She is “incarnated” in her body in a special way. This is why, when she gives herself, she gives herself completely; when she stains herself, the stain is particularly damaging. (The Privilege of Being a Woman, 2002)

The emphasis on female chastity reflects the moral power of women. This is another essential point. The sphere of conscience and feeling belongs to woman. This is where she reigns. The springs of feminine goodness feed the culture at large; the drought inhibits. This is why it is more serious when a woman commits adultery. (It is very serious in a man too). In giving away her body alone, she betrays the trust that underlies all things and destroys the riches, the vestiges of that long lost Garden, dependent on her love and protection.

Kidist Paulos Asrat writes:

Thanks for your great post on “Of Equality and Chastity.” Yes, the strength of women is stronger than people ever realize, and it can arrive as an unexpected storm. I think that is why women have to be doubly moralistic (follow the “obedience” part to the utmost of their ability). I have seen many women unleash this force negatively, and who have literally ruined their unsuspecting, loving, husbands. Children seem to come out less scathed. I don’t see men ruining women in this extreme fashion. Odd, I still haven’t figured it out. Maybe it is anger and envy on the woman’s part, and supreme rebellion at having to carry “a heavy share of suffering.” At times, I think it is a rebellion towards a husband who does not command obedience, so the woman has to ruin him rather than live a life of unnatural disobedience.

One thing that is the favorite of closet-misogynists is that the serpent went to Eve first, and seduced (or convinced) her to succumb to evil first, and therefore she must have been the easier (weaker) of the two. What do you think about that?

Laura writes:

Thank you.

Soren Kierkegaard wrote:

… it belongs in her nature to be more perfect and more imperfect than man. If one would indicate the purest and most perfect quality, one says, ‘a woman’; if one would indicate the weakest, the most feeble thing, one says ‘a woman’; if one would give a notion of a spiritual quality raised above all sensuousness, one says ‘a woman’; if one would give a notion of the sensuous, one says ‘a woman’; if one would indicate innocence in all its lofty greatness, one says ‘a woman’; if one would point to the depressing feeling of sin, one says ‘a woman.’ In a certain sense, therefore, woman is more perfect than man… [emphasis mine]

The temptation of Eve, this legendary event that symbolizes a real moment in history, does speak of the greater impulsiveness of women as well as their immense influence over men. Face it. Men are less often taken in. Women tend to be more trusting.

John Purdy writes:

I wanted to add one point and perhaps a minor quibble with your enlightening post.

In Milton’s Paradise Lost one of the fallacious arguments Satan makes in the angelic debate prior to the war in heaven, involves conflating equalitas and paritas, which are two quite different aspects of God’s order. He argues that we are all equal, ignoring the aspect of paritas which is intrinsic to God’s order. Not coincidentally, liberals make the same conflation between equality and parity.

The true argument is that all God’s creatures exist in a relationship of equalitas vis a vis God’s love. However, they are imparitas, unequal in power, influence, order of rank, and responsibility, in relation to God’s order. God’s order has a hierarchy to it. Man stands at the pinacle of God’s fleshly creation with angels above man and Satan was first among the angels His transgression leads to the fall of the earthly domain.

Thus my minor quibble: I suspect that the eating of the forbidden fruit by Adam probably is morally more significant than Eve’s contravention. It may be, as you argue, that the subordination of women is a product of the fallen world rather than aboriginal to the Garden. But I’m not sure Milton saw it that way.

This is theology and not really my speciality but I thought I’d just put it out for you to consider.

Laura writes:

Excellent. Thank you for this important correction.

Clark Coleman writes:

This was well put and insightful. I believe that something important is missing, however. In the civil realm, we must establish societies that work. This means we do not depend on everyone being an angel, living up to the loftiest ideals, etc. Note how our nation’s Founders had a constrained, pragmatic view of human nature, hence the need to avoid concentrations of power, the need for checks and balances, etc.

When we move to the realm of religion, we can expect that ideals will be embraced that are difficult to realize. We don’t make the Sermon on the Mount our civil law, requiring everyone to live it fully, but we expect (within the Christian subset of our society) that the Christian will live it as best he can.

The words you spoke about why female chastity and female adultery are more serious than male chastity and adultery are very true in the secular world. Let’s keep in mind that the Bible does not condone male promiscuity or male adultery any more than it condones female promiscuity or adultery. One of the great failings of Christendom is that we have embraced secular attitudes concerning male sexual behavior rather than instilling Christian attitudes. We don’t raise our sons with the same cautionary teachings about sex as our daughters, don’t impose the same curfews on them, etc. (I realize that I am speaking partly of a bygone era; today, we could pessimistically say that parents don’t teach sons or daughters much of anything to do with sexual morality, therefore the sexes are now equal in this respect! But that would be an unfair generalization to the conscientious Christian parents out there.)

Your answer to Brittany is a perfect answer to the question, “Why have societies throughout history and across all continents tended to emphasize female chastity more than male chastity?” For example, she mentioned India. Had she asked why traditionalist Christian bloggers have the same emphasis, then the answer would have to be more complex, along the lines of: “Christian bloggers pick up on the same natural factors about male and female bodies, relationships, psychology, etc., as non-Christian cultures have picked up on over the centuries, and they have not tempered this understanding with any particularly Christian doctrines from scripture, unfortunately.”

I speak out on this issue because I believe that one of the downfalls of our civilization is that we depended about 99% on females to be the guardians of sexual morality. Now we are shocked – shocked! – to discover what happens when women abandon this role. If we were not Christians, this would be understandable. But any culture that calls itself Christian, as ours did for many centuries leading up to perhaps a few decades ago, and then teaches its sons that girls need to worry about premarital sex but boys don’t, is not applying the Christian faith to a large area of life. We are now reaping the whirlwind.

Laura writes:

Thank you for this. I agree with what you say. This is another very important correction to what I said above. But, even when male sexual restraint is upheld, as it should be in any Christian society, female sexuality is still different in the sense Hildebrand mentions when she speaks of the more intense union of body and soul in a woman. This does not mean men experience none of this spiritual connection or that their sexual acts do not have the moral dimension Clark discusses. 

Kidist writes:

I think these very few verses of Genesis, as John Purdy has demonstrated, show us that there is a hierarchy, even in Heaven. I think there will always be.

From the snake, to Eve, then to Adam. Perhaps Adam is the most to blame, since he had the highest responsibility (of the three).

The challenge is how we women will reconcile Eve’s disobedience with our own nature. Disobedience might just be the curse of females; look at the evil feminist movement and what it has wrought. Perhaps that is why Paul emphasized it: “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.” And: “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church.” This love, of course also includes correction and direction.

Two very different directives, for two very different aspects of God’s creations.

Again, a great and thoughtful post.

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