Maree Brown’s Reviews > Biblical Foundations for Manhood and Womanhood > Status Update

"The husband and wife are of equal worth before God, since both are created in God's image. The marriage relationship models the way God relates to his people. A Husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the church. He has the God-given responsibility to provide for, to protect, and to lead his family. A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ. She being in the image of God as is her husband and thus equal to him, has the God-given responsibility to respect her husband and serve as his helper in managing the household and nurturing the next generation."
pg 24

"Eve's role, and the purpose that God had in mind when He created her, was that she would be "for him... a helper." Yet in the same sentence God emphasises that she is not to help Adam as one who is inferior to him. Rather, she is to be a helper "fit for him," and here the Hebrew word kenegdô means "a help corresponding to him," that is, "equal and adequate to himself." So Eve was created as a helper, but as a helper who was Adam's equal. She was created as one who differed from him, but who differed from him in ways that would exactly complement who Adam was."

Pg 32

"It is much more appropriate to the context of a curse to understand this as an aggressive desire against her husband, one that would bring her into conflict with him."

Pg 34

"There would be pain in tilling the ground, pain in bearing children, and pain and conflict in their relationship. It is crucial at this point for us to realise that we ourselves are never to try to increase or perpetuate the results of the curse. We should never try to promote or advocate Gen 3:16 as something good! In fact the entire bible following after Gen 3:16 is the story of God's working to overcome the effects of the curse that He in His justice imposed... we ourselves should never try to perpetuate the elements of the curse!"

Pg 35

"Therefore Gen 3:16 should never be used as a direct argument for male headship in marriage. But it does show us that the Fall brought about a distortion of previous roles, not the introduction of new roles. The distortion was that Eve would now rebel against her husband's authority, and Adam would misuse that authority to rule forcefully and even harshly over Eve."

Pg 35