by happehanna 3 Replies latest watchtower bible
Genesis 3:16
To the woman He said, "I will greatly multiply
Your pain in childbirth,
In pain you will bring forth children;
Yet your desire will be for your husband,
And he will rule over you."
Amercican Standard
NWT version
words used are craving and dominate
This scripture irks me what are your views on this.
Could it just be a chauvinistic, msyogynistic, macho male's view of women putting a divine slant on it?
That certainly seems plausible to me.
Pat
you just can't accept that it's the word of god can you!!! (this is sarcasm so please don't attack me)
If you want to "walk on the wild side" (in more ways than one), this curse of Eve/women involved an increased sexual interest in men. Adam was Negroid and Eve was Causian and in later cultures the potent sexuality of blacks was depicted in half-human, half-animal form. In Western culture this attraction to the "beast" is done over and over again in the Beauty and the Beast theme....where there is the subconscious acknowledgement of the woman's attraction to the beast, that is, his sexuality in emphasis.
But a subtheme is also addressed and that is, what was Eve's pre-state to this increased attraction to the "physical"? Of course, it was her "intellectual" interests, thus her sexual needs were set in place to balance this tendency of the woman, particularly the white woman in academic pursuits.
Culturally, therefore, this is understood in the "Beauty and the Beast" theme when there is always the "ashen" competitive male that the beautiful woman is drawn to but ultimately doesn't want. In Disney's Beauty and the Beast it was the intellectual and conceited Frenchman vs the Beast; she found him stuck up. In another well done adaption of this these, the very classic "Gone with the Wind" of course you can recognize the over-sexed beast, the dark and promisculous and womanizing Rhett Butler, who the woman ultimately finds out she is really attracted to, in comparison to Ashley, the man with principles and a love for his books and way of life, but who lacks the passion Scarlet really needs.
But the story is popular because of a nice twist. That is, the woman is torn between these two needs, particularly the white woman; that is of wanting the sophistication of her culture and wealth, but having to deal with her sexual needs. So he beast is modified by becoming a "prince" who is also rich, so she has the best of both worlds. In "Gone with the Wind" it is Rhett Butler's money and wealth Scarlet seems to want only to find out his passionate attentions are all that matters. Yet she finds her "strength" in land.
Sumerian legend plays this out quite simplistically as well where you have the woman, torn between two types of men: the farmer (white man) and the shepherd (the black man). But really, these probably reflect her own inner conundrum of wanting the best of both worlds, something that seldom comes in the same package. That is, she wants the "beast" in bed but not the beast at the dinner table; at the dinner table, she wants the attentive "prince charming", but she doesn't want him to be THAT charming under the sheets, she wants that TIGER!
But that's what the "curse" was about, bringing a little bit of that focus of this woman down from her head to some other regions of interest a little farther south. Because of this "weakness" though, she is often taken advantage of by men, gets broken hearted, double-dated and ultimately dumped far too often. So that prophecy came true.
"Lady Chatterly's Lover" is another movie/story if I recall it correctly that addresses this common theme too. A woman of upper class whose husband basically is unfulfilling to some degree, having been injured at war and she is allowed to "discretely" take care of her physical needs, only she was expected to do so within her own "class" and society; instead, of course, she runs after the sexually potent gardener/handyman and finds ectastic happiness, more happiness than she's ever known tending the castle, partly because a man with nothing will give you everything he has, a man with everything can't afford to do that, so the rich man's wife gets short-changed in the emotional department.
Oh well, such complexities of life make storytelling all the more fun, does it not?
JC
