No. It was a specific punishment meted out to women. Becuse of what Eve had specifically done. Yeah, Adam got slapped as well, but you suffer domination because of what Eve had done.
There’s no point in asking why it is so. Eve ate the fruit. And persuaded Adam to do so also. No way you can blame your punishment on him.
So you ask me why you are dominated? Well, there are two answers.
One is the natural order of things. Males are big and strong and you are not. We can procreate with umpteen partners for very many years and you cannot. We are a little more civilised these day, so we reach the point where I don’t actually ask my wife to get me a case of beer. But it’s the natural order, like it or not.
Two is…God commanded it. Genesis 3:16.
It seems that you go with the second option. I didn’t click the link, but no doubt it is repleat with stories of women suffering domestic violence.
So if you want the Catholic answer as to why you can’t leash your dog the first time or why men dominate you, it was God’s call. It is a punishment.
I actually see the punishment as an extension to the disharmony caused by sin. The original sin drove a wedge between God and Man, and by extension between men, and within a man himself. By ruining his relationship with God, he also ruined his relationship with his fellow man, and his relationship between the different aspects of his soul.
Marital relationships also suffered. Before, there was harmony between man and wife, but now there is disharmony, some of which can ruin the marriage. Now, when a married couple have a disagreement in which they cannot agree, a decision that is essential to the marriage itself, what do they do? They can’t get divorced, because not only does that break their vows, but also harms the children, so what can they do? A good, reasonable option would be have one be a “veto,” a religious, conventional, or independently decided person to break the tie.
But why the man, rather than the woman? I agree that some of this is due to convention and tradition, but I think there is some truth in the belief that men tend to be more rational than woman in certain situations, and thus better decision makers. C. S. Lewis, for example, thinks that men in general are more rational when mediating between society and his family, because they can more easily detach their emotions regarding their families in order to consider and resolve a conflict more rationally, while mothers have more trouble doing so (due her deeper emotional attachment to her children, which we see most clearly in the “mother bear” mentally. None of this is a bad thing in itself, of course: children need their mother bear
It’s just that the intensity of protective emotions can cloud the intellect).
Now, I think that some “vetos” are better left to the woman, while others are better left to the man. For example, I think the woman should have more influence on how many children she plans to bare, due to the disproportionate sufferings she will have to endure (and I’m not just talking about childbirth here).
Anyway, this disharmony wouldn’t have existed before original sin, and so it makes sense that the punishment that a woman is to obey her husband would be due to original sin. But even still, before original sin, it made sense to make the male the dominate in the relationship, because of the nature of gender: masculinity is active, while femininity is passive, and so the husband would feel it more natural to do for the wife, and the wife would feel it more natural to obey the husband (Machiavelli made us think that it is better to be obeyed rather than obey, but humility teaches us otherwise). The Fall just made these roles much more necessary.
Furthermore, sin makes following the moral law painful and forced, rather than enjoyed and done through love (which is actually what Grace is supposed to do, write these Commandments on our heart, so that we can simple “love, and do what we will”), a woman would have found emotional contentment and joy in obeying her husband before the original sin (while the husband would have found emotional contentment and joy in sacrificing everything for his wife, instead of refusing to do so or groaning about doing so).
We end up seeing the idea of a man being dominate in a relationship as a man forcing a woman to do what she doesn’t want to, which is due to our dislike for virtue, especially humility (and this applies to both sexes). The original intention though, which Grace is destined to correct, is for a marriage to be like a graceful dance, where the man leads, and the woman follows suit, or to be like the relationship between a leader that serves for the good of his subordinates, and his subordinates who trust their leader.
Or to be like the relationship between Christ, who dies for the sake of His Church, and His Church who have faith and trust in Him.
Christi pax,
Lucretius
But that’s another topic…
