Maybe.
But do note that none of these births are the “miracles” that human childbirth is, according to many.
What is your basis for that? Pain in childbirth affects the flesh.
My source about the menstrual cramps being related to original sin is my UMC pastors when I was a teenager. I would say that constitutes at least a portion of “western Christianity” although perhaps there is not widespread agreement on the connection between cramps and original sin.
Genesis 3:16 literally mentions pain in childbirth.
To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.”
(ESV. The New JPS is similar. KJV says “sorrow” rather than “pain”, but I think most of the modern literal translations say “pain”.)
Incidentally, I’ve been told that this passage is the theological basis for “missionary position”. “rule over you” is a euphemism for “be on top during sex”. And my MIL, who was quite knowlegable about this sort of thing, said that this was because a competing religion saw the sky as a goddess, and the growing grain reaching up as a metaphor for male sexual arousal, and had religious rituals enacting the mating of heaven (female) and earth (male). So the authors of the Bible wanted to outlaw that.
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See this is why we should not use the Bible as a legal reference.
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I suppose to some extent, but it varies a lot by species and birth-to-birth. The large human skull makes it hard for the baby to fit between the hip bones, and creates more pain in “normal, uncomplicated” childbirth than most animals experience. But I’ve seen a sow who clearly had a painful labor (and ultimately had to be put down when she failed to deliver) and female hyenas grow a penis, and their firstborn has to literally tear a hole in the penis to be born. (They also have a lot of pregnancy complications.) So yes, some animals have a lot of pain.
Giving birth is difficult for female hyenas, as the females give birth through their narrow clitoris, and spotted hyena cubs are the largest carnivoran young relative to their mothers’ weight.[80] During parturition, the clitoris ruptures in order to facilitate the passage of the young, and may take weeks to heal.[65]
Huh, I just noticed this part after cutting and pasting. Most translations say something more like “towards” than “contrary”. New JPS says
And to the woman He said,
“I will make most severe
Your pangs in childbearing;
In pain shall you bear children.
Yet your urge shall be for your husband,
And he shall rule over you.”
That’s augustine’s interpretation of original sin. it was in opposition to other interpretations in which, for example, sex itself was a mark of the fall, and we might lose our sex upon resurrection.
i think the idea would be that our bodies are fundamental to our nature. so when the will was broken, our experience of our bodies was too.
think of the religious aesthetics who could ignore the needs of their bodies because they were so focused on god’s love. it’s not that their experience of their flesh is unaffected. but it is really their will that they are fixing.
My understanding is that it is really the vaginal canal that limits our head size. Part of why we are born so undeveloped is that our head has to fit through.
I think that also our upright posture creates a bend in the pelvis that makes childbirth harder.
Also the ripped clitoris thing sounds really painful for the poor hyenas.
That’s not really a thing in Judaism, and i don’t think it’s based on the Bible. Judaism teaches that our bodies are made in the image of God, and we have a responsibility to care for them, out of respect for God. We aren’t supposed to ignore the needs of our bodies.
(Yes, we have a lot of fasts. Your body is designed to withstand fasts from time to time, that’s not ignoring a need but putting aside a desire. In a sense, it’s exercising an innate ability. And we have a lot of feasts, too, which we are supposed to enjoy.
If you are actually at risk of damaging your health by fasting, you aren’t supposed to do it.)
Anyway, menstrual pain is similar enough to pain of child birth that it seems like a reasonable extrapolation, even though I’ve never heard it before. “It’s all spiritual” just sounds wrong.
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I’m speaking specifically about christianity. the jewish idea of the body in god’s image was pitted against the hellenistic idea of flesh as corruption, and mostly won, but not completely.
however, while aestheticism isn’t a thing in rabbinical judaism, there was a lot of hellenistic and other influence in judaism in roman times. i thought there was some aestheticism going on, for example the group with the dead sea scrolls.
Yes, but i think they would be considered a heresy, like Christianity. I don’t think anyone would accept them as mainstream Jews if they showed up today.
I understand that there’s an aesthetic strain in Christianity, probably dating from its origin. I just think its source was something outside of Judaism and outside of the Bible.
Kind of from the beginning:
[Saint] John’s clothes were woven from coarse camel hair, and he wore a leather belt around his waist. For food he ate locusts and wild honey.
One of the reasons we taught our kids about sexuality at a very young age was because I wanted them to have the language to tell us (or anyone) if something was being done to them sexually. I shudder to think of the children who will have no external concept of their own sexuality because their parents aren’t teaching them and their schools can’t. It’s a lot easier to molest a child when they don’t have the words to understand it.
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“…which was the style at the time.”
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our school district uses that within its sexual health curriculum. and uses the real words for the body parts. and explains consent and what are private areas. social work leader has told me it has generated multiple leads along the lines of someone having violated a kid in the aftermath of those days.
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Probably why groomers don’t want it taught in school.
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The ironic thing is that that’s exactly what sex education is in elementary school. Teaching kids about consent, and that it’s okay to say “no”.
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I found a comment by Augustine on that verse:
Summary
Why, therefore, may we not assume that the first couple before they sinned could have given a command to their genital organs for the purpose of procreation as they did to the other members that the soul is accustomed to move to perform various tasks without any trouble and without any craving for pleasure? For the almighty Creator, worthy of praise beyond all words, who is great even in the least of his works, has given to the bees the power of reproducing their young just as they produce wax and honey. Why, then, should it seem beyond belief that he made the bodies of the first human beings in such a way that, if they had not sinned and had not immediately thereupon contracted a disease that would bring death, they would move the members by which offspring are generated in the same way that one commands his feet when he walks, so that conception would take place without disordered passions and birth without pain? But as it is, by disobeying God’s command they deserved to experience in their members, where death now reigned, the movement of a law at war with the law of the mind. This is a movement that marriage regulates and continence controls and constrains, so that where punishment has followed sin, there correction may follow punishment. .
He was responding in part to certain groups that thought sex was a punishment for sin, along with death.
For him, the additional pain comes because the will is broken and can no longer move the body in a way that births children without pain (and has sex without passion apparently.)
I don’t think it is so different from the Jewish idea of having a “right heart”, but perhaps used in a radically different way.
Anyway, as I understand it, here is everything we are still dealing with regarding sex. By saying the body is good, Augustine focused what would become the west on the will instead of a corrupt body. Women are no longer considered malformed men, as under Aristotle. Sex becomes a part of our fundamental nature. And sexual lust becomes a mark of original sin.
On the other hand, I think it must have moderated Christianity too. The family/household became ok, having pre-dated the fall. And Christianity continued to be supported by wealthy Roman households.
JFC. This judge wrote a law review article and had his name removed as author and replaced with others so he didn’t have to disclose it during hearings about his judicial nomination.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/04/15/matthew-kacsmaryk-law-review/
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