Terry, I didn't want to clutter up the thread commenting on Caroline's story, but I wanted to talk a little about my views of the Biblical story about Adam and Eve. In Genesis 2.7 God creates Adam, which is described this way in my English version of the Bible (New Revised Standard Version Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989):
then the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.
After this, God immediately sets about planting the Garden of Eden for Adam. Gen. 2.8-14 describes the Garden of Eden. Then God puts Adam there, and gives Adam instructions:
The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man: "You may freely eat of every tree in the garden; but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.
Now God has given Adam a place to live and a source of food, as well as an occupation, that of gardener. Only now does God comment on the fact that Adam is alone:
Then the LORD God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner."
To me, it is obvious that if God makes Adam "a helper as his partner", then Adam and his helper will not be equals. The helper will exist for Adam's sake, to cure his loneliness, but Adam will not exist for the sake of the helper. God created Adam before he even thought of the helper. So Adam exists because he has an independent value of his own, but the helper exists because Adam needs company (and help).
After God has realized that Adam needs company, he starts creating animals. God apparently hopes that one of the animals will be the helper that Adam needs.
So out of the ground the LORD God created every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for the man, there was not found a helper as his partner.
I find this passage hugely interesting, because it clearly suggests that if God had found an animal that would have been good enough to be Adam's helper, then God would never have created woman in the first place. But since no animal was good enough for Adam, God created woman from Adam's rib.
In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul brings up the story of Adam and Eve to explain his own views of man and woman, including why he wanted the Christian women to cover their heads during prayer or prophesying (1 Cor. 11.7-9):
For a man ought not to have his head veiled, since he is the image and reflection of God, but woman is the reflection of man. Indeed, man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for the sake of woman, but woman for the sake of man.
Admittedly, Paul then somewhat ameliorates his harsh statements about woman, and about the relationship between man and woman (1 Cor. 11.11-12):
Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man or man independent of woman. For just as woman came from man, so man comes through woman; but all things come from God.
Even though Paul makes it clear that man can't exist without woman - obviously - I still find his words about woman being created for the sake of man, but man not being created for the sake of woman, unacceptable. For that matter, I find the story about Adam and Eve unacceptable.
There are other Biblical stories which make man and woman far more equal. In the first story about the Creation in the Bible, the creation of man and woman is described like this (Gen. 1.27):
So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them.
Jesus, too, basically treats man and woman as equals. Personally I find it hugely interesting that Jesus emphasizes the husband's duties to his wife (see for example Mark 10. 2-9), while at the same time he defends and forgives women who are accused of various sexual transgressions (see for example John 8. 1-11). Personally, I like to think that Jesus recognized that he lived in an oppressively sexist society, where men's right to judge, punish and dispose of women was almost limitless. And since I think that Jesus believed in the basic equality and mutuality between man and woman, he would have opposed such laws and practices.
And Terry, since you brought up the comparison between Adam and Eve and Clark and Lois: personally, I think there is no comparison. Lois was not created for Clark's sake. (All right, she was, in the sense that Robin the Boy Wonder was created for Batman's sake.) But at the very least, Lois and Clark are not used as hugely important religious models of what man and woman should be to each other! The fact that they are soulmates and that they belong together is something else entirely. But let me just say that this is another reason why I'm so violently opposed to Lois deathfics, where the reader is supposed to cry for Clark's sake because Lois is dead. To me, this comes uncomfortably close to the idea that woman is man's helper, and that she has been created for his sake, to cure his loneliness. (In India, there has long been a tradition of burning widows on their dead husband's funeral pyre, since the widow obviously has no reason to live now that her husband is dead.)
If Lois dies, then I think we should cry for
her. She is the one who has lost her life. The idea that we should cry for Clark reinforces the idea that Lois and Clark's togetherness is ultimately about
Clark's needs. That way, the story about Lois and Clark is ultimately the story about
Clark, and that way we can go on telling the story even if Lois dies. That way the story about Lois's death becomes the story of Clark's grief. And that way the story can continue as Clark finds himself a new helper and partner, and that way, the story about Lois and Clark is not the story about soulmates and equals, but about a man coping with the death of his helper.
Ann
