Her desire ..

On another forum, I just wrote something on the subject of Genesis 3:16 "your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you" Some traditionalists advocate that the woman's desire here is the desire to dominate her husband; I actually believe it's the opposite. This is what I said:

I agree (in fact i wrote an essay for college on this very subject once. I believe this is simply a prophetic description of what takes place in a fallen humanity that is no longer God-centred -- as a generalisation, men build their sense of security by being dominant and controlling, women are more inclined (and remember these are generalisations) to become co-dependent (= idolatrous) towards their husbands. Hence patriarchy, CBMW etc etc (there are many shades) -- it's a system that slots straight into our fallenness. It also explains why so many women are willing to ride on the patriarchal bandwagon -- not only because they've been taught/conditioned to believe this but because for at least some of us, there is this fifth columnist in our own hearts which makes us vulnerable to being dominated. Look at all the romances out there which show a woman being dominated (tamed?) by a strong (read bossy :( ) man. CBMW-types (if I can respectfully call them that) would say that is because God really made women to submit, and that is where we are to find our ultimate romantic fulfilment. But, apart from anything else, the sheer unhealthiness of many of those images/plot-lines, and the infantilising of the women, makes me question whether the appeal is not, rather, to our fallenness, and therefore the very thing we should be striving to overcome in the Kingdom of God?

I believe this dynamic helps to explain the abuse of women