Gender roles

Do we read Ephesians 4:22 and readily assume that it’s a prescription of gender hierarchical roles because we come from a society where there is such a disparity in how men and women are viewed and therefore we impose these same lenses when we read scripture, and assume that this is how is should be understood and therefore dictates what men and women’s roles are. It might be wise to consider the context in which Paul had to critique husband and wife relationship and why they are being spoken to about these issues. If it were taken literal, men were told to love their wives at least 4x, while the woman was not told a similar command. Does this mean that women should not love their husband? Or is there are reason why men were told these things, maybe that they were not loving their wives properly. The same goes for women, when they were told to submit to their husbands…what was going on during that time between their interaction that both were even being told how to appropriately interact with each other.

The same is true when reading the Genesis during which God gives a list of things that men and women would do and suffer as a consequence of their disobedience…However, this was not necessarily meant to be a prescription on how men and women are to live, but that these behaviors would likely happen as a result/consequence of sin, therefore to continue to live in this way is to perpetuate and to continue in our sinful state. Yes, there are things that we would continue to experience as a result of sins’ continued presence (such as the pain of childbirth and continued need to till the ground for food), but this does not mean that we should aspire to live these consequences out, such as women’s “desire will be for her husband and that he would rule over her” Gen 3:16. But why is this the consequence…why the “desire” and that man would rule over woman be the consequence? Does this relate to how the woman took initiative by listening to the serpent without talking to the man, thus usurping authority? And the man not taking his responsibility of speaking up about the command God has given and thus when something went wrong he failed to take ownership of his lack of initiative and blames the woman instead…how did this birth to the hierarchical relationship that has resulted as sin’s consequence between men and women?