2.1 2.2 creation and the fall  (Page 3/3)

James B. Gambrell, one of the male leaders most supportive of women, also advocated the interpretive tool of "a great principle governing the whole matter," but he understood that under that guiding role men were superior only in two realms: as head of their own household and as ordained ministers. BS, November 1, 1894, p. 1. In other areas he asserted that women "manage themselves a great deal better than men succeed with the difficult task of managing themselves." Ibid. While he did not appeal specifically to the creation stories to support his more egalitarian view, it corresponds more with the tone of the first chapter of Genesis in which no order of creation nor inequality was implied and man and woman were jointly given domination of the earth.

The latter interpretation, or a "softened" version of the helper motif, was more frequently appealed to in the twentieth century as women gained more confidence and stature. It was often couched in sentimental terms and was certainly accommodating rather than assertive, but it connotes a more positive image of femininity than that of inferior assistant. The following reinterpretation of the creation story demonstrates the sentiment:

God has made woman, not from man's feet to be trampled upon by him, nor from his head to be ruled over, to be dominated by him, but from his body to be his equal, from his side to be his helpmeet, from under his arm to be protected by him, and from near his heart to be loved by him. BS, February 24, 1916, p. 15; also July 2, 1914, p. 2, attributed to Matthew Henry.

C. C. Brown, an elderly minister, turned the subject around in an open letter to young women:

You know I have sometimes been tempted to think the Bible was a little unfair towards women. We read there how God made a help meet for men; but is nowhere said that he ever made a help meet for women, and I have an idea that this is the one thing we are waiting for in this world. But I believe in evolution. Fact is, I am a genuine, all-around evolutionist, and I have a faith that this great desideratum is yet to grow up and be developed out of the common germinal biped known as man. BS, August 16, 1894, p. 1.

This Baptist bias in favor of democracy did narrow the areas in which men exercised dominion over women (with a few important exceptions), but the relationship between the sexes was not negated nor was independence the result. The focus turned instead to the complementary nature of sexual interchange. "Woman's right to stand as man's copartner in making this world and in building a civilization has been slow of recognition," allowed one minister in 1914. "That woman is not the peer and equal of man is a fallacy unsupported in Scripture." In a rather whimsical reference to Genesis he explained: "I rather take the idea that the order, of creation, man first and then woman, suggests that woman was intended as an improved edition of man." BS, July 2, 1914, p. 2.

Indeed, the elevated view of femininity that developed in nineteenth-century America mediated against the traditional application of the Genesis narratives to denigrate women because of Eve's seductive nature and her primacy to sin. There are a few references to the moral inferiority of women; a 1900 temperance resolution reminded members of the women's organization that "our ancestor in Eden has in SOME way been blamed for all of the evils to which mankind is heir," but it went on to say that since they were blamed, they should play a part in trying to eradicate those sins. Minutes of the Baptist Women Mission Workers of Texas, 1900, p. 144. Hereinafter this group will be referred to as "BWMW." Even when Eve was blamed for bringing damnation on the world, Mary was credited with having given it a savior, preserving the favored view of womanhood. "Woman's life reaches both extremes," explained one writer, "and has the balance of power for good or evil in all ages." BS, December 18, 1902, p. 10. Usually, even Eve is described, not in her shame, but in her glory, as "the beautiful, beautiful Eve, pure, lovely, perfect, so excellent, exalted, angelic" Texas Baptist and Herald, February 2, 1887, n.p. Hereinafter this newspaper, published in Dallas, Texas, will be referred to as "TBH." or as "a perfect woman, as perfect a woman as could be made by a perfect God." BS, July 2, 1914, p. 2. To counteract the usual claim of woman's superior piety, a rare writer in 1896 brought forth Eve's example and asserted that "women are just as depraved and sinful by nature, and too often by practice, as are the opposite sex." BS, January 23, 1896, p. 2.

Whether making women the match of men at sinning or vice versa, the trend was toward an egalitarian yet interdependent view of sin and sexuality. "Adam was equal in the transgression and all humanity is under the load of sin," stated J. M. Dawson in 1913. BS, June 19, 1913, p. 2. Dawson, like Gambrell, had an extremely competent wife. "A man is only half a human being. Woman is the other half. They two make one human being . . . God is really Mother as He is Father." Ibid., p. 11.