ertains that God made them garments of skin, as a sign
of their mortality.

Reply Obj. 1: In the state of innocence child-bearing would have been
painless: for Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xiv, 26): "Just as, in
giving birth, the mother would then be relieved not by groans of
pain, but by the instigations of maturity, so in bearing and
conceiving the union of both sexes would be one not of lustful desire
but of deliberate action" [*Cf. I, Q. 98, A. 2].

The subjection of the woman to her husband is to be understood as
inflicted in punishment of the woman, not as to his headship (since
even before sin the man was the "head" and governor "of the woman"),
but as to her having now to obey her husband's will even against her
own.

If man had not sinned, the earth would have brought forth thorns and
thistles to be the food of animals, but not to punish man, because
their growth would bring no labor or punishment for the tiller of the
soil, as Augustine says (Gen. ad lit. iii, 18). Alcuin [*Interrog. et
Resp. in Gen. lxxix], however, holds that, before sin, the earth
brought forth no thorns and thistles, whatever: but the former
opinion is the better.

Reply Obj. 2: The multiplying of her conceptions was appointed as a
punishment to the woman, not on account of the begetting of children,
for this would have been the same even before sin, but on account of
the numerous sufferings to which the woman is subject, through
carrying her offspring after conception. Hence it is expressly
stated: "I will multiply thy sorrows, and thy conceptions."

Reply Obj. 3: These punishments affect all somewhat. For any woman
who conceives must needs suffer sorrows and bring forth her child
with pain: except the Blessed Virgin, who "conceived without
corruption, and bore without pain" [*St. Bernard, Serm. in Dom. inf.
oct. Assum. B. V. M.], because her conceiving was not according to
the law of nature, transmitted from our first parents. And if a woman
neither conceives nor bears, she suffers from the defect of
barrenness, which outweighs the aforesaid punishments. Likewise
whoever tills the soil must needs eat his bread in the sweat of his
brow: while those who do not themselves work on the land, are busied
with other labors, for "man is born to labor" (Job 5:7): and thus
they eat the bread for which others have labored in the sweat of
their brow.

Reply Obj. 4: Although the place of the earthly paradise avails not
man for his use, it avai