Neither is healthy…both are fallen. This provides an important insight into the verses re: men ‘ruling’ over women. God is stating the natural order only inasmuch as “natural” means default. These things ought not to be.

I’d agree. That is a nice summary, though I might add that “natural” = “result of the fall” rather than what so many assume as “perfect.” No more than bad body odor and starvation are perfect.

This is interesting Stephen. I like it. I was reading Nibley recently about how our secular laws are a substitute for what we have lost, or have failed to live up to. Perhaps this business with husbands presiding “over” wives is due to the fall, as you seem to be saying.

My point was that such a situation is just as telestial as murder, theft or other sins, not something we should be preaching. Instead, we should be preaching an escape from the fallen condition of being an enemy to God, and the method is the same for any sex, any gender.

I’m sorry if anyone got the impression that I did not believe that “Adam fell that man might be, men are that they might have joy” or that only women fell.

These posts are really too short sometimes.

Notice, for example, that woman is not given the commandment not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. That commandment is given to man only; and after that command is given to man, woman is created. I read this as woman being outside of the commandment not to eat the fruit of the tree in the midst of the garden.

After eating the fruit, the Lord God comes down to the garden to find man in his fallen condition, after finding Adam having hid himself and querying Adam as to what happened, Adam says, “The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.” To paraphrase Adam’s response in modern language, he’s basically saying, “First of all you gave me this woman, then the woman made me eat it.”

Man’s sin in the fall is this: not accepting responsibility for his own actions. Instead of accepting responsibility for what he had done, Adam first blames the Lord, and then he blames the woman. Also, man mistaught woman that she was under the same commandment as him, so the serpent had to re-educate woman to get her to eat it (elsewhere in Scripture, the serpent is associated with knowledge and Christ).

You cite Genesis 3:16. I see this verse as evidence for why woman had to be outside the commandment, and why it had to be woman to decide when to take the fall, for it was woman that would have to bear the pains of founding the human family, it would largely be her struggle (consider there are more single mothers than there are single fathers, etc.).

In summary, man misteaches woman, influenced by woman man breaks his commandment, when confronted about breaking his commandment man blames God then woman. Read Genesis yourself and see what you come up with.

PS: It’s also interesting to note when the first prayer is said in Genesis, even if our own books of Scriptures say prayer started before Genesis does.

I look at the way that the Brethren have begun speaking of “presiding” differently than in the past, and I see their words as evidence of their attempt to return to the pre-Fall situation of equality Stephen describes in this post. The equal partners sharing responsibility to accomplish together primary roles (with the counsel to make adjustments according to individual circumstances) outlined in the “Proclamation to the World” is a great example of this.

I read this post as Stephen’s attempt to articulate a return to a previous ideal – a higher law – that was lost at the Fall, buried in the annals of history, restored to a degree with the Restoration but still not fulfilled completely in our modern day and age. I agree that we need to redefine or even eliminate the idea of presiding within a marriage – as long as that marriage truly is functioning as a celestially equal partnership.

If anyone is interested in something I wrote last month:

Presiding: An Evolution of Definition

In the sentence, “A friend gets a new boyfriend and she drops everything and everyone and quits thinking for herself,” just the change of the word “for” to “of” would receive a stamp of approval from many. Isn’t that would we aim for in celestial marriage, to think of our spouses above ourselves?

And the sentence, “Which is the path by which women regain their celestial equality to men, in spite of the fall . . .” makes it sound like only women fell, and they are they only imperfect beings trying to measure up with men again.

Anyone else have similar thoughts?