Sheriff Dada
@sheriffdada728892
1 year ago
WHAT CAUSED THE BATTLE?
(MY VISIT TO THE GARDEN OF EDEN)
The world has centuries ago been a battlefield of sociopolitical interests between the menfolk and the womenfolk. The clamors by the latter for a level playing field in the social, economic, and political spaces of life can not be said to have begun in a particular century. Yes, gender equality awakening began sometime somewhere in nations of the world. Perhaps, as a Christian with the mind of a critical and conscious thinker, I am beginning to conclude that the clamors began in the Garden of Eden, where God had kept the first created man(Adam) and woman(Eve).
It is revealed in the Holy Bible that God created man first and gave him the power to rule over all other creatures(both living and nonliving) and later created the woman (from man) as a helper to man(see Genesis 1-2). With the Biblical creation chronology and the duties and responsibilities that God assigned to all that he created, one can rightly posit that man was designed to be the head of all other creatures(including the woman) and has the power to do with the other creatures what he deems fit to do with them. But a critical question of why both the man and the woman were later referred to as the 'MAN' may arise from the thoughts of a critical thinker. Was it that God did not design gender and no one knew the sex of the first man? Was it that as the head of the woman, the word, ‘man’ is being used as a metonymy?
While one may be wrong in the eyes of the religious man to answer the aforementioned posers in the affirmative, most men will answer them in the affirmative. If the man’s answer in the affirmative was God’s plan, why did the woman rise in protest against God’s plan?
While some may not agree with the Biblical scene of the Garden of Eden, the critical Christian mind will agree that the woman’s revolt and protest began in the Garden of Eden on the day when Satan, through the aid of the woman, altered the status of man before God. The result? God’s declaration of harsh sanctions on the three characters in the garden (see Genesis 3:16-24). What could have made the woman offer the man 'the forbidden fruit' and why did the man have to obey the woman if he was the only one that could make decisions? Was the man’s obedience to the woman a show of weakness or revelation that they both had the power to head? Perhaps, one may submit here that the woman was in charge because Adam was never recorded to have given an instruction to Eve in the Garden of Eden.
What later brought about the perceived 'marginalization' of the women by the men if the woman was in charge? Was it that the man later regretted his action, developed a hatred for the woman, and vowed to pay her back for bringing him suffering? Here, one may conclude that the man is on a revenge mission. The man decided to allocate the headship of the family, religions, political organizations, and others to himself. Probably, as God designed him to act. Maybe he later decided not to let his senses slumber again.
While a few women succumb to the opinion that men and women can not be placed at the same level on the socio-economic scale, many dismiss it as a creation of a man who was born a greedy soul. But who is the real greedy soul between the woman and the man? Who is the original head between the man and the woman? Has Satan vowed to continue using the woman in distorting God’s order? Or, is Satan now using the man to unleash pain on the woman as he made her do to the man in the Garden?
If Adam was a male and Eve, a female, what gender would you accord Satan?
Join me in my second revisit to the Garden of Eden to find out what went wrong!
