According to Christian Scripture, women are presented as inferior to men. This essay will show that the Christian Scriptures assert that God designed women to be inherently inferior and that this inferiority is manifested practically in teachings from the early church writers regarding both marriage and the church.
God’s design of women as inferior to men was initiated when he showed a preference by creating Adam first and Eve second. The following scripture illustrates how Eve’s inferiority was confirmed when God allowed Eve to be deceived, but not Adam. It demonstrates how Eve’s inferiority translates to all women today, condemning them to not exercise authority over a man: “Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit
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The following verses demonstrate this command for submission by women to their husbands: “And so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.” (Titus 2: 4-5) It could be argued that this command for submission alone fails to establish that women are inferior to men because submitting to something is not inherently degrading. However, this counter argument confuses consequence for cause: the command for submission to men is a necessary consequence of the inferiority of women already established by God, so that the word of God may not be reviled. This submission dynamic in a marriage setting is supported repeatedly: “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.” (Ephesians 5: 22-24) These verses further illustrate the unequal status of women by specifying the hierarchy of superiority: Christ, husband, then