The Effect of Eve's Sin on Women

After Adam and Eve sinned and God handed out His sentence to the serpent and its seed, and before He sentenced Adam and males, He told Eve that the sentence for her and females was that their desire would be for their husband who would rule over them. Here is the verse:

"I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; in pain you shall bring forth children; your desire will be for your husband, and he shall rule over you" (Gen. 3:16).

A woman's desire being for her husband (for men) doesn't sound like a bad thing unless you acknowledge that that was said in the context of sentencing one to a curse. There are translations that do a better job of showing why that desire is actually a curse, but I still don't understand the whole verse (I mean, God said He would multiply woman's sorrow and conception; we know what pain in childbirth means, but what does pain in conception mean?).

As far as the original KJV, God told Eve at least five different things there in the context of a curse:

1. Her sorrow would be greatly multiplied (what sorrow).

2. Her conception would also be greatly multiplied.

3. Her childbearing (possibly before, during, and after) would be painful.

4. Her life would revolve around and be lived for [a man/men].

5. Her life and reality would be subject to [a man/men].

I was one of the few high schoolers who enjoyed history class. I like to know what happened in the past especially as it affects the present. So, I tend to follow things back to their past so I can make sense of them in the present. And so I wonder what the curse on Eve means because it is the origin of many of the things about women today that most men don't understand or can't make peace with. Actually, if there is anything right now that makes me feel a genuine need to truly pursue and lay hold of God to make sense of a lot of things, it is the effects the Fall has had on women. ('Lay hold of God' doesn't mean 'spending time with God' or Bible reading and prayer but an actual 'face to face' or continuing type of conversation.)

Anyone with more of an explanation of Gen. 3:16 feel free to share. When I read that verse, just like when I read the first three chapters of Genesis and as with much of the Bible, I know there is a lot more going on there than is written on the surface. Besides, the things or aftershocks I can clearly see in the present require that there is a lot more being said in Gen. 3:16 than what is written on the surface.

The Septuagint has this

Jhn 16:21
A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world.

Genesis 2:18 The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” (ezer kenegdo explanation)

God cursed the ground and the serpent. He did not curse the man and the woman; rather, He told them the consequences of their action.

There are many different translations of this passage in English. In light of this, it doesn't make sense to assign doctrinal basis to a single translation without demonstrating that the chosen translation is likely the best one.

The consequences sound like a curse to me

God said specifically to the serpent, "Cursed are you..." (v, 14) and to Adam, "Cursed is the ground...". He did not say either to the man or to the woman that they were cursed. Though they are related, negative consequences are not actually curses. I can tell my daughter the consequences of foolish actions without me cursing her.

Yeah but we aren't responsible for his foolish action, so we are not experiencing the consequences of our actions, we are experiencing the curse, so experientially it is a curse

I understand what you're saying. I make the distinction on the wording used.

Contrast this with Song of Solomon 7:10 "I am my beloved's, And his desire is for me."

God told Adam that the ground is cursed "for thy sake" and "in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life" after telling Eve that 'in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children" so, these sound similar in regard toward the reception of fruit, whether from the land, from which Adam is created, or (Adam's) body from which Eve is created. The land gives Adam as much grief as Adam gives Eve. Naturally, even though she longs to be one with him, he works against her as much as the ground 'fights' with Adam give him its fruit.
That is, the land gives Adam grief, all the days of his life, and Adam is the source of Eve's grief.

All this cursing going on and I can only think of what Jesus taught:

Ephesians, Chapter 5:

28So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.

29For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church:

30For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.

31For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.

32This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.

33Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.

As for all that cursing in Genesis, Adam and Eve's disobedience of God brought them to realize death. So, if there is any curse of them it is that they became "earthly," and their days were numbered from that first day of disobedience. As was/is all mankind forever.