Eve in Paradise Lost

After reading Paradise Lost (with the gendered lens, of course), I had some mixed feelings like I did with the Wife of Bath. I guess I'll attempt to keep this short and sweet, despite how many times I went back and forth during my reading. I think there's something really incredible about the way Milton imagines the story in Eden, and particularly Eve's role in all of it. He seems to have been somewhat of a outsider, theologically speaking, seeing as he presents Eve as capable of making a choice, and intelligent enough to choose something that is ultimately in the interest of human kind. In other words, there is somewhat of a victory for women in Milton rendition of the Eden story in that for once woman is perceived as man's equal in intelligence and/or autonomy. The problem I have with it, however, is the assumption it perpetrates that although Eve is intellectualy capable, she simply does not have the moral fortitude of Adam. Where Adam is concerned with obedience and is more or less Christlike, Eve is the one who (fortuitously, of course) does not have the moral strength to resist temptation. Even though her mistake is good for mankind, she is the one--out of she and adam--to make the mistake.

Now, I feel like exploring my own thoughts a little, and what this means for the veracity of the Adam and Eve narrative. I cannot accept that the plan of salvation is both a perfect plan on the one hand, and a plan that requires woman to be less morally capable than her male partner for it to even work. I mean, let's be honest here, if there really was a man and woman in the Garden, based on what we know about men and women historically, who would've been more likely to eat the fruit, and who more likely to exhibit some self-control. History tells us that men, of course, are the ones who take what they want and leave what's left for women and children, which suggests to me that only a very male-centered view of the world could inspire such a view of humanity so disconnected with reality. I guess I'm not saying I don't believe that Adam and Eve existed--although I'm not really in a position to say either way--but I would definitely say that the story we learn from the Bible needs to be seriously qualified if I'm going to see in a value in it. I think there needs to be some recognition that the people who wrote the story down, did so long after the fact, with the self-assuredness granted by prophethood, and the male-centric-ness granted by male-hood. So to get back to Milton, I have to say I appreciate the progress Paradise Lost represents, in relation to the worldview Milton would've been indoctrinated with, but there are certainly some assumptions at work her that continue to undermine the good qualities and capacity of women to be virtuous, rather than scapegoats for the world's problems.