Did Authoritative Male Headship Exist in the Garden of Eden Before the Fall?

The Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise, 1791, by Benjamin West; image by Everett Collection / Shutterstock.com

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There is a lot of debate going on currently regarding male and female roles in marriage and the church. Increasingly, some Christians are arguing that there was no authority structure in Adam and Eve’s relationship in the garden of Eden prior to their fall into sin.

According to this line of thinking, if there was no relationship order before the fall, then authoritative male headship was not God’s original design but rather part of the post-fall curse. The conclusion of those who argue this way is that husbands and wives are to equally submit to each other, and all those verses in the New Testament about wifely submission and women not being able to teach authoritatively in the church must mean something else. Is this actually true? No. Here’s why.

We learn about God’s original design for men and women in the second chapter of Genesis.

In Genesis 2 God made a conditional covenant with Adam before Eve was created:

The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden,  but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (Gen. 2:15-17)

In Genesis 2 we also learn that God made Eve, an image-bearer of God, to be a helper to Adam:

Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.  The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said,

“This at last is bone of my bones
     and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
     because she was taken out of Man.”

Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. (Gen. 2:18-24)

In these two passages we learn that God made Adam first and then made Eve from the rib of Adam for the specific purpose of being a helper to Adam. Additionally, before God created her, God gave Adam the direct command not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, along with specific sanctions if Adam failed to pass the test of fidelity to his sovereign King. God also gave Adam authority to name the animals before Eve existed.

Authoritative male headship was part of God’s original design in the garden of Eden.

As Denny Burk points out in an article for The Gospel Coalition, one of the key arguments against authoritative male headship is based on an interpretation of Genesis 3:16 that denies the reality of order in marriage before the fall.[1] (See below for more on Genesis 3:16.) Yet, Adam’s headship before the fall is on display in the following circumstances:

• Adam—not Eve—was given the responsibility to keep God’s command not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In Genesis 2:16-17, God made a conditional covenant with Adam (also known as the covenant of works) to test his fidelity to his Creator. Eve had not been created at the time God commanded Adam not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam was the covenant head who represented all of humanity, and by his disobedience he brought condemnation on himself and all his posterity. Similarly, Jesus was the covenant head who, by his fully obedient life and perfect sacrificial death, secured salvation and eternal life for all who trust in him (see Romans 5:12-21 regarding the first Adam and the last Adam).

• Adam exercised authority over the animals by naming them (Gen. 2:19). Similarly he called the helper God gave to him “Woman” (Gen. 2:23). Post-fall, Adam would give his wife the name Eve, “because she was the mother of all living” (Gen. 3:20), showing his faith in God’s promise to provide a savior for mankind.

• Even though Eve sinned first, God placed the fault on Adam, as he was the one who bore the responsibility to keep God’s command in Genesis 2:16-17:

And to Adam he said,

“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife
    and have eaten of the tree
of which I commanded you,
    ‘You shall not eat of it,’
cursed is the ground because of you;
    in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
    and you shall eat the plants of the field.
By the sweat of your face
    you shall eat bread,
till you return to the ground,
    for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust,
    and to dust you shall return.” (Gen. 3:17-19)

Satan sought to overthrow God’s established order for the human family.

The fact that the serpent approached Eve and not Adam is an indication of Satan’s attempt to overthrow God’s design for the order of creation:

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” (Gen. 3:1; see also Gen. 3:2-7)

According to theologian Meredith Kline in Kingdom Prologue: Genesis Foundations for a Covenantal Worldview,

Various factors may have entered into the tempter’s strategy of approaching the woman rather than Adam. Certainly in maneuvering Adam out of the position of primary response Satan was defying and subverting the structure of authority God had appointed for the human family. Moreover, there would be greater contradiction of this same divine institution if Eve could be induced to lead the family head into sin than if it happened the other way around.[2]

Kline continues regarding Satan’s attack against the social structure God had ordained:

Satan’s challenge to God’s authority compelled man to choose between two masters. It was part of Satan’s falsifying of the situation that he projected for himself the image of lordly benefactor. While he was getting the woman to separate in theory between God’s interests and her own and to act in a spirit of self-interest over against the (insinuated) inconsiderateness of God, Satan managed to strike the pose of one who was himself concerned for man’s best interests. At every turn he forced onto man this choice between authorities. By approaching the woman and ignoring the man’s headship he presented a different interpretation of the social structure from that given in God’s covenant law, so compelling the woman and man to choose which authority they would submit to.[3]

In a report on women serving in the ministry of the church that was adopted by the Forty-Fifth General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of America, a study committee also addresses the reversal of roles taking place in Genesis 3 that God had established in Genesis 2, about which the apostle Paul writes in his first letter to Timothy:

In 1 Timothy 2:14, Paul draws attention to a second role reversal in Genesis 2. Eve is deceived by the serpent, because, in part, Adam failed to play his role as husband and covenant keeper. Though Adam was created first (1 Tim. 2:13) and was personally given the command/prohibition by God before Eve was created (Gen. 2:15-17), Adam listened to his wife’s voice instead of God’s command. Moses explicitly explains: “Then [God] said to Adam, ‘Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, “You shall not eat from it”; Cursed is the ground because of you; In toil you will eat of it all the days of your life’” (Gen. 3:17). Paul’s whole discussion in 1 Timothy 2:11-15 is squarely based on Genesis 1-3. Eve was deceived, but Adam is responsible (Rom. 5:12, 19; 1 Cor. 15:21-22) because he failed in his role as covenant keeper and federal head. Adam listened to Eve, even when she contradicted the word God had personally spoken to him. Eve was deceived, but Adam disobeyed an explicit command. His was high-handed sin.[4]

If Adam and Eve were equal in their roles and responsibilities in the garden prior to the fall, then Eve would have been held equally responsible as Adam in keeping the covenant, but this was not the case. As the study committee notes, it is Adam who was held responsible for breaking the covenant, not Eve, because he was the federal head (Gen. 3:17-19, cf. Hos. 6:7).

Genesis 3:16 describes the distortion of the post-fall relationship between a husband and wife.

After man’s fall in Genesis 3, we find the following pronouncement by God to Eve:

To the woman he said,

“I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing;
     in pain you shall bring forth children.
Your desire shall be contrary to your husband,
     but he shall rule over you.” (Gen. 3:16 ESV)

For those who prefer the NASB version for Genesis 3:16b:

“Yet your desire will be for your husband, And he will rule over you.”

Adam and Eve no longer existed in true righteousness and holiness as they did before the fall. As Claire Smith points out in her book God’s Good Design: What the Bible Really Says about Men and Women, the prior ordered relationship that already perfectly existed between Adam and Eve in Genesis 2 is altered post-fall, with the husband and wife both having sinful natures. Genesis 3:16 “does not represent the institution of male headship and wifely submission, but the distortion of it. The battle of the sexes has begun.”[5] The consequences of Adam’s sin of listening to his wife instead of obeying God’s command and Eve’s sin of usurping Adam’s authority result in a continuing struggle going forward for harmony in the marital relationship.

Post-fall godly headship and submission always disavow abuse of any kind.

It has been wrongly taught that, in light of Genesis 3:16b, post-fall headship includes forcing women to submit to their husbands. In her essay “The Desire of the Woman: A Response to Susan Foh’s Interpretation,” author Rachel Miller rightly challenges Foh’s assertion in an influential Westminster Theological Journal article titled “What Is the Woman’s Desire?” (1975) that “the tyrannous rule of the husband seems an appropriate punishment for the woman’s sin” and that a post-fall husband “must master” his wife.[6] Miller points out the sinful license for abuse such statements encourage.

Genesis 3:16 is descriptive, not prescriptive. The verse is referring to the difficulties of the curse, just like man sweating from his face in Genesis 3:19. The entire world is under a curse due to Adam’s disobedience, and we all experience the ramifications of the fall to varying extents in not only the sin and misery present in our relationships but also the havoc that permeates the natural creation around us. Both aspects of Genesis 3:16b tend towards abuse, and the law “to love” orders us to do neither of them—women are not to dominate, and men are not to be tyrants. Indeed, the distortion of male-female roles in marriage is one part of the curse that Christ came to take away (Rom. 5:12-21; 8:19-23).

It is critical to distinguish the difference between authoritative headship and authoritarian headship.

Since Scripture teaches that a wife is called to submit to her husband’s authority and be respectful of him, it most definitely exposes the wife to potential abuse—emotional and/or physical—by her sin-fallen husband. Such abuse is a grievous misuse/distortion of the husband’s leadership responsibility. Indeed, the potential for abuse exists in all relationships because of our sinful natures (Eph. 5:1-6:9).

Thus, when Paul tells wives to submit to their husbands in Ephesians 5:24, he does not mean that wives must endure abuse, neglect, or mistreatment of any kind by their husbands. That kind of behavior is sinful per se and is not to be left uncorrected. Rather, Paul is reminding the church that a wife is under the authoritative leadership, not tyrannical rule, of her husband (Eph. 5:23). Indeed, in Ephesians 5:2 Paul tells us all to “walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

Some Christian women have been wrongly taught that they have to tolerate any kind of treatment from their husbands in order to be biblically submissive and respectful, and this instruction must be fervently repudiated by the church. If a husband directs his wife to do anything that goes against her conscience, she always “must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29). Because women—and men as well—are vulnerable to abuse in a marriage, they need to be under the proper oversight of faithful church leadership and civil authorities that God has provided for their care and protection.

In a healthy Christian marriage, the husband and wife should lovingly and sacrificially put each other first before themselves, as fellow members of the body of Christ. Faithful headship involves creating an environment of openness and communication in which the husband honors his wife and values her opinions, all the while recognizing her equality and the gifts God has given her. Still, the husband has the final say as the authoritative head of the household, and he also bears responsibility for the entire family before God.

Order in the church is also connected to God’s design for men and women in creation.

For a woman to teach or exercise authority over men in church would be to mimic the role reversal in Genesis 3 that was addressed by the PCA Forty-Fifth General Assembly (see above). This is why Paul reminds the church that women are to receive God’s word in the formal church service quietly instead of proclaiming it authoritatively:

The women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church. (1 Cor. 14:34-35)

The apostle Paul specifically points back to the order of pre-fall creation in Genesis 2 when he writes to Timothy regarding order in the church:

Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. (1 Tim. 2:11-14)

God’s creational order for men and women has not changed post-fall.

Upholding women as God’s image-bearers, equal to men in worth in God’s sight, is good and right. Yet, we must not allow ourselves to be pulled out to sea in the riptide of powerful shifting cultural standards and give in to the temptation to disregard biblical teaching on authoritative male headship before the fall. While some people may not like what the Bible has to say about men’s and women’s roles in marriage and the church, in his sovereign will God established a particular order for male and female in the garden of Eden that has not changed post-fall. When it comes to God-ordained roles for men and women in marriage and the church today, our Lord has given us clarity regarding his order of creation in the book of Genesis in many New Testament passages, including Ephesians 5, 1 Corinthians 11 and 14, 1 Timothy 2, Titus 2, and 1 Peter 3.

To attempt to rework and redefine what God has clearly stated in Scripture is strikingly similar to what Eve did in the garden. Kline addresses Eve’s shift from submitting to the authority of God’s word to assuming self-rule instead:

[Eve’s] new theology was evidenced in her assumption of a critical stance over against the word of God. In reaching a decision on the relative merits and conflicting legal and prophetic words of God and the devil, she did so on the basis of her newly liberated powers of reason, functioning autonomously without a pre-commitment to the absolute authority of the Creator as the God of truth. Presumptively assuming divine right, she redefined the special, exceptional tree as a tree the same as all others, pleasant to the eyes and good for food (Gen. 3:6a; cf. 2:9), and assigned to it a new name. By her fiat it was no longer to be the forbidden tree but the desirable tree—desirable (should the truth be told) to satisfy the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life.[7]

Similarly, we may have our own ideas of what we think is right, but the only thing that matters is what God says is true and right. It is to his will that we must submit in all things:

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Rom. 12:2)

While it is tempting to follow not only the world but also fellow believers who are teaching what people may want to believe is true, Christians must hold fast to what the Bible actually says—no matter how unpopular that teaching may be—for it is good.

For more on this topic, please see “What Is Mutual Submission and How Does It Apply to Marriage?”

Related Articles:

• What Is Mutual Submission and How Does It Apply to Marriage?

• Q & A: Are There Limits to Male Headship?

• What Is Colossians 3:18–4:1 Saying about Submission within Family and Society?

• 6 Ways a Christian Husband Cherishes His Wife

• 6 Ways a Christian Wife Cherishes Her Husband

• What Is the Bible Saying in 1 Corinthians 11 about Head Coverings?

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Le Ann Trees is managing editor of Beautiful Christian Life. This article has been updated since its original publishing date.

[1] See Denny Burk, “5 Evidences of Complementarian Gender Roles in Genesis 1-2,” The Gospel Coalition, March 5, 2014, accessed August 9, 2018, https://ift.tt/E39JaQg; see also Burk’s citation of Richard S. Hess, “Equality with and Without Innocence: Genesis 1-3,” in Discovering Biblical Equality: Complementarity Without Hierarchy, ed. Ronald W. Pierce, Rebecca Merrill Groothuis, and Gordon D. Fee (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2004), 94-95.

[2] Meredith Kline, Kingdom Prologue: Genesis Foundations for a Covenantal Worldview (Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2006), 122.

[3] Kline, Kingdom Prologue, 123.

[4] Report of the Ad Interim Committee on Women Serving in the Ministry of the Church to the Forty-Fifth General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America, p. 22:13-25, https://ift.tt/s6ZtLMC.

[5] Smith, God’s Good Design, 171-74, 178. Regarding exegesis of Gen. 3:16, please also see Susan T. Foh, "What Is the Woman's Desire?" The Westminster Theological Journal 37, no. 3 (Spr 1975): 376-383, ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials PLUS, EBSCOhost; Claire Smith, “A Sidebar Named Desire,” The Gospel Coalition, September 17, 2012, https://ift.tt/Jwtzd1B; Richard M. Davidson, Flame of Yahweh: Sexuality in the Old Testament (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 2007), 60; as cited by Nick Batzig in “Desiring to Rule Over Genesis 3:16,” Reformation21, September 15, 2016; https://ift.tt/E5Y4ITM to-rule-over-genesis.php; Wendy Alsup, “Problems with a New Reading of an Old Verse,” The Gospel Coalition, September 17, 2012, https://ift.tt/PBeJz7o; and Rachel Miller, “The Desire of the Woman: A Response to Susan Foh’s Interpretation,” A Daughter of the Reformation, March 2, 2017, https://ift.tt/oRWdzvS.

[6] Miller, “The Desire of the Woman”; see also Foh, "What Is the Woman's Desire?”

[7] Kline, Kingdom Prologue, 126.

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