Letters: Eve's Punishment; Woman's Pain

Reader: Is it not a contradiction that one the one hand, God afflicts women (Eve) with pains of birth, but on the other, this causes her to regret having children, and must bring a sin offering? God addresses one problem, buy simultaneously causes another!

Mesora: Pains/depression were given by God to women as a means of focussing her on her pregnancy, birth and child rearing. This causes her to redirect her energies away from her husband, no longer directing him towards sin, as Eve did. This is a good, even though it might cause women to regret having children due to the pain. 

Gen. 3:16 ends, "He [your husband] will rule over you." This I believe proves the point, that the purpose of the pains shares this objective; that woman now becomes subservient to man, which was not the case before. She was initially capable of urging Adam's sinful act, so her dominance was removed, expressed in the same verse that discusses her new subservience. We have a tradition that all elements of any verse must be related. I feel that relationship in this verse is the "subservience" to man, pronounced at the end of the verse. Redirection of her energies towards her pregnancy, birth and child rearing share this objective. Placing these two elements in a single verse, God hints to the common objective that both are to redirect her from dominating man. Each person must be uninfluenced so their respective choices are their own.