hat women
should be inferior to men in intellect and freedom of action, then, in
regard to one-half of the human family, God worked by the law of
retrogression, producing Eve, an inferior, from Adam, a superior being;
which is clearly contrary to the law of progression, and contrary to the
general plan of his creation; and, if this be true, the laws of
progression and retrogression were to alternate perpetually. Is this
supposition of inferiority in the case of woman consistent with what we
know of God's method of working, as given in the history of the
creation? Let us recapitulate the whole briefly, and see.

1. He created inanimate matter. 2. He brought vegetable life into
existence. 3. The inhabitants of the waters were created. 4. "The cattle
after their kind." Still ascending, God said: "Let us make man in our
image, after our likeness. So God created man in his own image, in the
image of God created he him; male and female created he them." Here,
then, we see that God created man from a portion of inanimate earth; but
that he produced the woman from a perfect portion of the perfect man,
plainly appears from the twenty-first and twenty-second verses of the
second chapter of Genesis, which, though quoted recently, necessarily
come in, in this place. "And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall
upon Adam, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the
flesh thereof; and the rib, which the Lord God had taken from the man,
made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is
now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called woman,
because she was taken out of man."[H]

Prior to the fall, then, it is quite evident that woman was equal to man
in every respect. Did Eve, then, because she was first in the
transgression, forfeit her right of equality with Adam, who just as
flagrantly transgressed the Divine command; or was the penalty inflicted
in consequence of her disobedience another matter altogether?

Genesis iii, 16, is usually brought forward to prove that, if woman was
not inferior before the fall, she became so absolutely and
unconditionally then. A disinterested reader--could such be found--would
scarcely so render it. "Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply
thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth
children, and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over
thee." Upon the latter clause of this verse, separating it from