women in the order of things.

Woman, as we all know, was conceived by God in the Christian tradition as a subsequent creation to Man. Because Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge upon seduction by the serpent, Adam and Eve were exiled from Eden--Adam, to bear the pains of physical work; and Eve, to bear the pains of childbirth for eternity. The entire story of the Fall of Adam and Eve, I hope, need not be recounted here.

I've always found this story slightly perplexing, as it may have been for some of you. Omniscient, omnipotent God, the Creator of the Universe, surely expected Eve, or Adam, to disobey him. It's not really about temptations for the prohibited, or the seduction from Satan, or even Eve's (women's) tendency for disloyalty, disobedience, or simple stupidity. Rather, the fact that Adam and Eve were created as prototypes of God--not exactly God but kind of like him--seems to indicate first and foremost the secondary status of Humans, and confirms God's superiority. And therefore, if God was so superior, well, he must have known.

So then, what could such an idea, that God knew, infer? A couple things. That, the development of the world that followed from the exile of Adam and Eve was completely accounted for. This leads one to question how far God knew, and how much of his creation was within his original plan. There are more inquiries that could arise from this inference, but we'll save that for another day. What concerns me today is the second inference: that is, the role of women.

Again, I state: Woman was conceived by God in the Christian tradition as a subsequent creation to Man. Some people may have thought of asking, why God created Eve second. Arguments for patriarchy as the divine, natural order of the world, or justifications for misogyny, or even the evidence for masculine supremacy, have all been derived from this one, somewhat situational fact that Adam was created first. But again, let us return to the idea of omniscient God: God knew, God had intent. He created Adam first, then Eve.

Historians of religion argue that the coming of Christianity with the coronation of Constantine imposed upon a matriarchal, pagan world order, a patriarchal, Christian world order. If we, albeit hesitantly, slightly generalize the nature of human society and the course of development it has followed over its extensive history, I think we can readily see that today's world is fairly patriarchal. As proof, unlike paganism where female deities were common, the only female Christian icon is Virgin Mary. Additionally, there are no female popes or priests. Just nuns. I think things have been changing in the past few years, and more and more women are taking up roles in various aspects of society. But for a while, this was not the case. So, Adam still stood as the first-born.

But, the role of women, as the so-called "Second Sex," to use a term of Beauvoir's, could have been carefully conceived by God. God may have known that Man would never understand the reasons for creating Eve at all, other than for procreation, and possibly companionship. Man would always assume that his first-born status was the divine sign for his supremacy. Man was, however, first-born only because there was one being that followed him: Eve, the second-born. Man, therefore, (created by God the way he was) would always make an effort to affirm his supremacy over Woman. Omniscient God knew this. Thus, perhaps it can be inferred that God put Eve second because by doing so, Man would always believe in the incontestability of his status.

It doesn't end there. The role of Woman, therefore, was to remind Man of his supremacy. Yes, this sounds absurd and blasphemous. Unfortunately for Man, this supremacy is a constructed illusion placed by God himself. Would Man ever feel threatened enough to affirm his own supremacy without Woman, the 'other' creation of God? Perhaps, but I for some reason doubt it. So if Woman was created to perpetuate an illusion, then what does that make Woman?

This is the question I came upon. Any ideas?