The Gospel According to Eve

Women, she contends, cannot be both the weaker sex by divine design and more culpable for original sin, for “where there is less intellect and less constancy, there is less [blame for] sin.”31 In other words, if the woman is truly the weaker sex, then she cannot be held more responsible for original sin than Adam who, though superior, also participated in sin. To claim Eve as more culpable than Adam is to imply that she had the equivalent moral and intellectual capacity to that of a man, which is akin to saying that men and women are equal. Nogarola leaves the debate open-ended. However, by the end, it is evident that Nogarola’s primary goal is not so much to defend Eve, but to deconstruct the gender ideology of her day.

Following medieval interpreters, Christine further observes that Eve was created from the rib of the man, located in the middle of his body. From this she concludes that the woman “should stand at his [man’s] side as a companion and never lie at his feet like a slave.”23 The reason for this is not only because she is his equal, but because she is part of him and there is an intimacy and mutuality between them that is rooted in her very creation. As Eve was made from Adam, he should be inclined to love her, not dominate or demean her, for—as Aquinas before her had noted—loving Eve is like loving himself.

Second, Speght, like Tarabotti before her, concludes that because Adam was in need of a helper, he was imperfect before the creation of the woman.

Genesis 3:15, God announces the promise that there will come one who will crush the head of the serpent, thereby rescuing women from the “injustices suffered.”74 Like all evil, in God’s redemptive plan, one day patriarchy will be eradicated and women’s freedom restored.

who force women into cloisters, she claims, are like the devil himself who assumes a role that does not belong to him.

For Fonte and Tarabotti, however, that God created the woman after the man does not indicate her inferiority but rather her superiority.55 As a seed is inferior to the thing which emerges from it, Fonte comments, so man is more lowly than woman who was created from his body.56 In making her last, God singled out the woman for honor, Tarabotti argues, she being “the compendium of all perfections.”57 Thus, while God infused all his creation with his power, wisdom, and love, he set apart the woman as the final and finishing touch, it being God’s will “that all those catching sight of her should marvel.”

If we [women] are their [men] inferiors in status, but not in worth, this is an abuse that has been introduced into the world and that men have then, over time, gradually translated into law and custom; and it has become so entrenched that they claim (and even actually believe) that the status they have gained through their bullying is theirs by right.