Thanks to Dr. Peter A. Lawler for helping me through this process and guiding my research with additional sources.
Thanks to Sarah Thomas for her editing and discussions that helped to develop this paper.
At last, it is done.
Senior Thesis: Marriage and Society in Modern Political Philosophy
Monday, December 5, 2011
Eve and Adam's need for a "fit" helper
[Continued from "The Garden of Eden: The Original Society of Adam and Eve"]
Now, I do not mean to overly emphasize the point of Eve’s punishment. For Eve is a very important part of this Genesis story. Was she tempted by Satan? Yes. Did she convince Adam to eat of the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil? Well, yes, but this all leaves out a very important part of Eve’s role in the Creation. In Genesis 2:18, the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” From here, God brings all the creatures of the Earth to Adam so that he may name them and that one may be his helper, but none would suffice. Genesis 2:20 states that “for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him.” Enter Eve. God put Adam to sleep, and “while he slept took one of his ribs” (Genesis 2:21) and “the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into women” (Genesis 2:22). From man’s rib God make woman. But why did God not make woman from the earth as God had made man? Man was made from the dust of the ground and filled with life from the breath of God, and then man was good. But woman is derived from what was already said to be good. What does it mean that no creature made from the ground was a helper fit for man (Genesis 2:19-20)? Even Adam, made from the ground was not good enough and needed a helper. But woman is not made from the ground, but from a rib of Adam, God’s hand on earth. Surely there must be something good here.
Amy and Leon Kass, in their book Wing to Wing, Oar to Oar, raise another interesting question of woman’s creation. Not only was she not made from the ground, but she was made from a rib of Adam specifically. They write, “What does it mean that she comes from a rib, from a place close to the heart?” This seems to be a very important question. Yes Eve was made from Adam and he says that “this at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (Genesis 2:23), but not just any bone. The purpose of the ribs are to protect the heart and the lungs, as they are vital organs directly related to life. God made Adam and “put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it,” (Genesis 2:15), but what about Eve? Of the creation of Eve, we know that she was made of the bone of Adam, specifically a rib, and that she was a fit helper for him where none else were. Here, Amy and Leon Kass ask another good question, “Why might God have seen fit to remedy the problem of Man’s aloneness by sending him a counter-part, an “other”?” Though here, the Kasses use the term “Counter-Part,” as opposed to helper. It seems important that woman was created to complete man. That no other creature made from the ground was fit, but that another must be created from the “good” that was man and the world, before sin.
Now, I do not mean to overly emphasize the point of Eve’s punishment. For Eve is a very important part of this Genesis story. Was she tempted by Satan? Yes. Did she convince Adam to eat of the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil? Well, yes, but this all leaves out a very important part of Eve’s role in the Creation. In Genesis 2:18, the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” From here, God brings all the creatures of the Earth to Adam so that he may name them and that one may be his helper, but none would suffice. Genesis 2:20 states that “for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him.” Enter Eve. God put Adam to sleep, and “while he slept took one of his ribs” (Genesis 2:21) and “the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into women” (Genesis 2:22). From man’s rib God make woman. But why did God not make woman from the earth as God had made man? Man was made from the dust of the ground and filled with life from the breath of God, and then man was good. But woman is derived from what was already said to be good. What does it mean that no creature made from the ground was a helper fit for man (Genesis 2:19-20)? Even Adam, made from the ground was not good enough and needed a helper. But woman is not made from the ground, but from a rib of Adam, God’s hand on earth. Surely there must be something good here.
Amy and Leon Kass, in their book Wing to Wing, Oar to Oar, raise another interesting question of woman’s creation. Not only was she not made from the ground, but she was made from a rib of Adam specifically. They write, “What does it mean that she comes from a rib, from a place close to the heart?” This seems to be a very important question. Yes Eve was made from Adam and he says that “this at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (Genesis 2:23), but not just any bone. The purpose of the ribs are to protect the heart and the lungs, as they are vital organs directly related to life. God made Adam and “put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it,” (Genesis 2:15), but what about Eve? Of the creation of Eve, we know that she was made of the bone of Adam, specifically a rib, and that she was a fit helper for him where none else were. Here, Amy and Leon Kass ask another good question, “Why might God have seen fit to remedy the problem of Man’s aloneness by sending him a counter-part, an “other”?” Though here, the Kasses use the term “Counter-Part,” as opposed to helper. It seems important that woman was created to complete man. That no other creature made from the ground was fit, but that another must be created from the “good” that was man and the world, before sin.
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Ronald Reagan and No-Fault Divorce
In an attempt to reduce the pain of divorce, Ronald Reagan (as governor) passed legislation in the State of California that was the nation’s first No-Fault Divorce. Because he was recently divorced, his hope was to “the divorce process less acrimonious, less contentious, and less expensive.” Regardless of his hopes, he later told his son Michael that the No-Fault Legislation was “one of the worst mistakes he ever made in public office.” The idea behind No-Fault divorce was that a married couple would be able to get a divorce without blaming fault on one of the individuals. Ideally this would lead to easier divorce. Yes and No. Passed in 1969, this legislation was passed in a decade where divorce rates hiked 80 in the United States. And this legislature, if anything, assisted in hiking the divorce rate. In the eleven years after Reagan’s No-Fault Divorce legislature, the divorce rate hiked another 86 percent. Micheal McManus of the Family in America Journal notes that “for every two marriages established since 1975, about one existing marriage was dissolved.” The divorce rate is not that about 50% of marriages end in divorce, but rather that one couple divorces for every two couples get married each year. This figure is still not settling. Divorce is still devastating to both individuals and the rates are still rising. McManus also comments that the suicide among divorced women is “triple that of married women” and “five times higher [among divorced men] than among married men.”
The effect of divorce on children is also devastating. Going back to Ronald Reagan and the example of his divorce, his son Michael, in his book Twice Adopted, writes about his experience as a child in the middle of a divorce. Michael Reagan writes that “divorce is where two adults take everything that matters to a child—the child’s home, family, security, and sense of being loved and protected—and they smash it all up, leave it in ruins on the floor, then walk out and leave the child to clean up the mess.” This image he creates here is devastating. Divorce may be “action or an instance of legally dissolving a marriage,” but what it is really dissolving is the family. In the cases where divorced individuals are parents, the children are also a part of what is being dissolved, and the No-Fault Divorce laws do not consider this. To show, statistically, the effects of divorce on children, McManus references a study by the Heritage Foundation. He writes that “children of divorced parents are three times more likely than their peers from intact homes to be expelled from school or to have a baby out of wedlock as a teenager, six times as apt to live in poverty, and are twelve times more likely to be incarcerated.” Surely governer Reagan did not expect this when he passed the No-Fault Divorce legislation in the United State and I can see why it was “one of the worst mistakes he ever made in public office”.
The effect of divorce on children is also devastating. Going back to Ronald Reagan and the example of his divorce, his son Michael, in his book Twice Adopted, writes about his experience as a child in the middle of a divorce. Michael Reagan writes that “divorce is where two adults take everything that matters to a child—the child’s home, family, security, and sense of being loved and protected—and they smash it all up, leave it in ruins on the floor, then walk out and leave the child to clean up the mess.” This image he creates here is devastating. Divorce may be “action or an instance of legally dissolving a marriage,” but what it is really dissolving is the family. In the cases where divorced individuals are parents, the children are also a part of what is being dissolved, and the No-Fault Divorce laws do not consider this. To show, statistically, the effects of divorce on children, McManus references a study by the Heritage Foundation. He writes that “children of divorced parents are three times more likely than their peers from intact homes to be expelled from school or to have a baby out of wedlock as a teenager, six times as apt to live in poverty, and are twelve times more likely to be incarcerated.” Surely governer Reagan did not expect this when he passed the No-Fault Divorce legislation in the United State and I can see why it was “one of the worst mistakes he ever made in public office”.
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