I Will Not Lie Below: A Cultural Introduction to Female Villainy

Throughout history and over several cultural belief systems, exists endless variations of stories depicting how the Universe came to be, all adhering to an array of ideologies and theories regarding the beginning of all life. One such example is the story of creation and the Garden of Eden from the Bible. Notably written by men, the story refers to the first man, Adam, and the first woman, Eve, who was created from the extraction of his own rib – immediately making the woman a subset and further extension of the man. Adam and Eve are instructed that they may live in the Garden in peace – so long as they do not eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil. Eve, existing only as an extension of her husband, is easily persuaded by the villainous serpent to eat from the tree, yet although both she and Adam ate the fruit, their punishments are not of equal measure: while Adam is doomed to rely on his own resourcefulness, Eve is bequeathed the pain of childbirth, and a loss of control of her own children. Interestingly, Eve has become a symbol of fertility and motherhood as a result of this tale - with some even speculating that the ‘forbidden fruit’ in the garden was a pomegranate, a fruit which is often linked to symbolism regarding fertility due to its many seeds. This story, therefore, continues the narrative that women cannot be trusted to have autonomy – both over themselves, and over anything they create. Although Adam did, too, eat the fruit, he is rarely associated with humanity’s banishment from the Garden, but is rather seen as having been ‘seduced’ by Eve to eat the fruit and disobey God, evidencing the presumed danger of a man allowing his wife to make decisions, and for him to listen to her advice.

Further exploration of the woman’s role as a villain in regards to the creation story leads to discussion of a character who, in Jewish folklore, is referred to as Adam’s first wife – Lilith. According to rabbinic literature, Lilith was created from the Earth, as Adam was, making her, unlike Eve, his equal. Due to this, she refused to “lie below” him: an act which would have suggested her subservience, and when he insisted that she should, she left the Garden – of her own accord.  Lilith is widely referred to as a demoness, with her children often taking the form of succubi and incubi, and has been known as the ‘patron of abortions’and a seductress of men. 

Comparisons have, naturally, been drawn between Eve and Lilith – with Lilith embodying “pleasure without children”, and Eve symbolising “children without pleasure,” as well as Eve being associated with fertility, and Lilith with child death and abortion.  Interestingly, in discussions of the creation story, neither feminine presence is seen as better than the other. While Lilith has been cast in the role of a seductive, sinful, child-murdering demon for resisting subservience to Adam and leaving the Garden, Eve, who remained with Adam, is considered to be foolish, deceptive, and to be blamed for the pain and suffering of humans on Earth. This provides the first glimmer of a discussion of the role of women, and the polarised scale upon which they sit, where they are either entirely virtuous or entirely villainous, and where neither of these extremes is safe from persecution. Furthering this allegory, in 1510, Michelangelo painted a depiction of Lilith wound around the Tree of Knowledge – suggesting that it was she, as the serpent, who lured Eve to eat the fruit and be expelled from the Garden. This idea suggests that, even if Eve were not to blame for her own naivety in trusting the word of the serpent over that of God – Lilith would still be to blame, thus further implicating women in the downfall of humanity. With Lilith’s reputation for being seductive, her taking on the objectively phallic form of the serpent represents more than just her convincing Eve to disobey God – but rather, the idea of her seducing Eve, by presenting her with both the phallic snake, and the pomegranate – which, as aforementioned, is correlative with fertility. 

 

The idea of a more seductive relationship between Lilith and Eve was visited by artist Yuri Klapouh, in a painting which depicts a winged Lilith laying over Eve in an intimate pose, her tail extending behind her as she holds an apple out to her, her lips pursed as if to kiss her. Eve herself lays beneath her, nude, with her mouth open – willingly accepting the apple.                       

 

             This concept not only perpetuates the idea of the villainous and deceptive woman, as both of Adam’s wives could be conceived to be plotting against him together – but also suggests that the absence of an autonomous man leads the unattended women to turn to lust and sin. This shows not only the potential for female villainy within the Bible – but that men are essential to the continuation of ‘morality’ by enacting authority and control over those who may be seen to want to compromise this sense of moral. Feminist critiques have discussed how the narrative within the creation story suggests the need for a man who is “morally and physically strong”, and a woman who is “submissive and bends to her husband’s will” within a marriage, referencing that, in the Bible, it is common for a woman’s “potent sexual seductiveness” to serve as a distraction from God and the Christian life. Such theorists, however, also discuss the significance of Eve having sinned compared with Adam’s – they ask if, had Eve singularly been the one to eat the fruit, would her punishment have been as severe – or was it dependent on Adam also sinning? Alternatively, if Adam had disobeyed God and eaten the fruit, but Eve had not, could the same be said? The sin, therefore, seems to lie in the combination of man being led astray by his wife, and the wife having the desire to lead him from God – the fruit, in this instance, acts only as a metaphor for that which is forbidden, but is taken anyway. It can therefore be derived that both Lilith and Eve were created to introduce man to sin – Lilith, through being a seductive, autonomous being who does not subject herself to matriarchal roles, and Eve, who was created as an example of the deceptive nature of women, an excuse for all men who are turned from God, and the explanation of the burden of motherhood – it is not God who made humans suffer, but the acts of naïve and deceptive women. 

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