Is God punishing women for what He Himself made them—because they are women, not men?

138.     Were the teaching true that all women must suffer pain and servitude for the sin of Eve, then it were pertinent to ask, Why must they suffer thus,—because they are Eve’s offspring? Are not men equally the offspring of Eve? The only answer is, “Because they are female offspring.” But who made them female offspring,—women or God? GOD. Then are we taught that God is punishing women, not for their own fault, not because they are sinners, not even because Eve sinned; God is punishing women for what He Himself made them—because they are women, not men. Away with such an attack upon God’s reputation for justice! And further, the idea that “sorrow,” in this verse means labor pains, or periodical suffering in women, is far-fetched; the same word is used of Adam in the very next verse. This word is not used for such suffering anywhere in all the Scriptures.

139.     Since this passage in Genesis, “Thy desire shall be to thy husband,” has been the cause of much immorality among men, in the cruelty and oppression they have inflicted upon their wives; since this false translation has been the cause of much degradation, unhappiness and suffering to women; and since this translation has been made the very keystone of an arch of doctrine subordinating woman to man, without which keystone the arch itself falls to pieces; and since the Apostle Paul’s utterances on the “woman question” are always interpreted as though this perversion of the sense of Genesis 3:16 was his accepted foundation upon which he builds his super-structure, it behooves us to review again the history of the ancient translation of the word teshuqa, and this we will do with the aid of the appended table…