Excerpt from Disciples Study Bible regarding Female Subordination from notes on Gen 3:16

Gen 3:16 in the KJV: Unto the woman he said, 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. Gen 3:16 FAMILY, Female Subordination—Traditional interpreters viewed the woman’s submission to her husband as having been ordained at creation and then distorted by the fail. A more recent view is that Eve’s submission was one of the consequences of her disobedience to God’s command and not God’s original intention for husbands and wives. But God’s giving men the responsibility for leadership in the marriage relationship comes clearly before the fall (Gen. 2:15, 18). Creating woman as “a helper suitable for him” conveys both essential equality and diversity of roles. Adam by himself was not the perfect creation that God had in mind. Adam needed “a helper who is like him,” that is, someone to complement or complete him, whose nature corresponded to his own. He needed more than a vessel for the production of children; he needed a “help,” not a demeaning term since it is also used of God (Gen. 49:25; Exod. 18:4; Deut. 33:7, 26; 1 Sam. 7:12; Isa. 41:10; Pss. 10:14; 33:20), The Hebrew word for rule is different from the verb which means to dominate. The latter is used in man’s dominion over the animals. Kenneth Mathews says, “We cannot understand the divine word ‘he will rule over you’ as a command to impose dominance any more than v. 16a is an exhortation for the woman to suffer as much as possible during childbirth. It is a distortion of the passage to find in it justification for male tyranny.” Marriage is to bring glory to God by mirroring the relationship Christ has to the church. The husband is charged to love his wife as Christ loved the church and the wife is commanded to be submissive to her husband “as to the Lord” (Eph 5:22–33). 

 Trent C. Butler, ed., Disciple’s Study Bible: New International Version (Nashville: Holman Bible Publishers, 1988), Ge 3:16.

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