The roles of women in all three of the Abrahamic religious traditions share the same essential principles of not only creation and judgment, but the way women play an inferior role in a dominantly patriarchal social order. Here we will compare and contrast each religions theological, social, and cultural implications on women, but retain the chief elements that bond these patriarchal ideologies. .
As we observe in the opening section regarding Judaism and its creation myths, we are first supplied with an excerpt from Tanakh, the Holy Scriptures: The New JPS Translation According to Traditional Hebrew of Genesis 1-3. Here, on several instances, the groundwork is laid for the patriarchal cause of the Abrahamic faiths in the story of Adam and Eve and The Fall. Eve, tempted by the serpent, eats from the forbidden fruit and then gets Adam to taste as well. As a result, all humanity is forthright compromised and the entire folly of human suffering is blamed on the weakness of the woman. Before Eve's fateful decision, we suppose that man and women were created equally, being created from the same flesh and bone. It is only after Eve's bite from the apple did God command that " your urge should be for your husband, And he shall rule over you." (Genesis 3:14, 355). Woman's suffering and eternal subjugation is then in fact a result of her temptation only, a punishment brought on by the wrath of God. From this primary myth we have adopted the notion of the weakness of woman and her role as temptress in most cultures. Mernissi points out in her discourse that "The battle between men and women is an aspect of the battle between good and evil, which is a fundamental form of cosmological conceptualization not only in Islam, but in the Jewish and Christian traditions as well." (Mernissi, 529). It is plainly shown in Islam, for example, the two pillars of Good and Evil state The Good as being Men, Husband and The Evil as Women, Wife, and Desire (as-sabwa).
