Something beautiful was happening before the fall between the man and woman.
“The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh. Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.”
Genesis 2:18, 23-25 NIV
Adam was so in love with this woman he was making her poetry. Romance was in the air.
The Lord told them in a pre- fall state their glorious work.
“So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.””
Genesis 1:27-28 NIV
But what happened to the man and woman relationship in the fall?
“To the woman he said, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.””
Genesis 3:16-19 NIV
There was a rift created between husband and wife at the fall. The wife will want to control the husband to try to be his covering . because of her fallen nature she will want to usurp His authority as head and covering . And the Husband will be tempted to abdicate his God given role and surrender his authority to the wife where Adam will live in passivity, then get frustrated and try to wrestle the authority back in an ungodly way through anger, vengeance, etc And from there it spirals out into all kinds of perverse diversions from the original design which we see play out in our modern lives every day in the current fallen world. As Christians we can begin to live back into what the true design was. But we have to actively fight our old sin and fallen nature every day to stay there. For modern women it will be a daily battle to respect the authority given to their husbands,allow their husband to lead the marriage and family to let them be the covering . For a modern husband it will be a daily battle to surrender to the will of God, love his wife and lead his family in a God honoring way, rejecting passivity and moving in the authority God has given him as head and the covering for his family.