Article January 11, 1993 Issue

"The curse causeless"

Is regular suffering inevitable for women? We can look to divine Love for an answer.

Beverly Bemis Hawks DeWindt

Is woman cursed? Is there a cause for such a thing? Many women refer to menstrual periods as "the curse," a term that's been handed down for generations. Any woman who has experienced painful cramps, depression, or other challenging symptoms associated with menstruation might feel the curse is an appropriate term. Many people believe that the cause of these symptoms is found in the account of Eve in the third chapter of Genesis. Here Eve is punished for disobedience and is told by "the Lord God," "I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children."

This account, however, is not in accord with the description of creation related in the first chapter of Genesis, which explains that God created man in His own image, male and female and wholly good. In fact, because God is Spirit, man is truly spiritual and perfect. The second account of creation—the material theory embodied in the story of Adam and Eve—is not historical but is a valuable allegory that can serve to alert us to what is not true about us. A verse from Proverbs comfortingly reminds us, "As the bird by wandering, as the swallow by flying, so the curse causeless shall not come." How cruel and unnecessary to suggest that women are governed by a material law that dooms them to regular suffering, when in fact God, divine Love, never made His loved children subject to such a condition.

The fact that a woman's mother or grandmother experienced depression or discomfort during her menstrual periods is not a law to determine the experience of that woman. We have the Biblical promise recorded by Jeremiah—"In those days they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children's teeth are set on edge"—to assure us that the belief of heredity is not created or supported by God, who is the only cause and creates only good. Each woman has a divine right to prove for herself, therefore, that she is free to counteract this imposition. She does not need to consent to myths that others have agreed to in their unawareness of God's law of love.

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