“… multiply your [woman’s] sorrows …” Which implies sorrows existed before the fall, which probably means a monthly cycle, which means Eve was periodically unclean before the fall, and, male and female both being in God’s image [Genesis 1:27], would make God have uncleanness, at least some of the time.
It does matter.
We are not created in the image of God through any of our physical attributes. God is pure spirit. He has no physical characteristics, except for those that He took on Himself through the Incarnation of Jesus. We reflect the image of God through our souls, the spiritual part of all mankind, which is what separates us from the animals and makes us more like God.
As far as your interpretation of the implications of that phrase from Genesis, I think we should look at the entire passage surrounding it for a better understanding of it, in context.
[16] To the woman also he said: I will multiply thy sorrows, and thy conceptions:
in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children, and thou shalt be under thy husband’s power, and he shall have dominion over thee. [17] And to Adam he said:
Because thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat,
cursed is the earth in thy work; with labour and toil shalt thou eat thereof all the days of thy life. [18]
Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herbs of the earth. [19] In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return to the earth, out of which thou wast taken: for dust thou art, and into dust thou shalt return.First of all, we have the part you reference, “I will multiply thy sorrows”. The only sorrow that Eve ever experienced in the Garden was of her own making, which was her sorrow for sinning against God by listening to the serpent. Later in the chapter, the Garden is referred to as the “paradise of pleasure”, so there was no pain or sorrow in it before the fall.
For her punishment, God says that in sorrow she will bring forth children. She will also be made subject to her husband, from that point forward. She was the one that decided to eat the fruit and enticed Adam to do the same. So, I think that was a very fitting penance for her sin, because she showed that she was not capable of making sound decisions on her own. She made her decision based on her ‘feelings’, instead of using her ability to reason, and Adam followed her lead.
But, Adam was also given the equally heavy penance of having to work hard to provide for his family, by tilling the land. That would not be easy because of the thorns and thistles that would grow on the earth due to the curse of his own sin against God, so that would also make it very difficult for him.
Neither one of them was given any preferential treatment, nor were any of their punishments unjust. They both got what they deserved.
)))