Fierce Lillith: Adam’s First Wife

We all know the tale of woe regarding Eve the dutiful wife of Adam, who despite her best efforts at being a good and obedient wife still ended up with being given the blame for humanity’s eviction from the Garden of Eden. In my opinion she might just as well have been as wicked as her predecessor Lillith, Adam’s first wife, for poor Eve she could not have been judged and pronounced more guilty even if she had tried.

All Christians learn this well loved creation myth at an early age, and so from small children the social problems of gender imbalance are fueled. Little boys are happily confident in the knowledge that they are guiltless; that the evil of humanity came into this world through woman consorting with the devil, which was of course not at all the fault of man. However little girls are burdened with the overwhelming guilt that women are inherently weak willed thus succumbing to temptation; that through Eve’s actions ‘original sin’ came into this world.
Now I am no psychologist but from a psycho-analytical perspective this is a terribly damaging concept to install into the minds of impressionable kindergarten children.

Jewish creation myth still has the encouragable Lillith, to uphold the balance within femininity of freewill and independence, showing the darker aspects of woman, to help bolster the lighter ones. By omitting her the Christianity does not even acknowledge she existed. This I feel heaps further insult upon Christian women, for they are given Eve as the female ‘origin’, showing women as wife, dutiful and obedient but also inherently flawed.

I love the symbolism within the visual Lillith image, to denote her wickedness she is depicted less than human, with elements of animal; her feet are hairy with claws not nails, she has a tail, and a fine pair of strong wings. The encoded message within these symbols is wonderfully clear, she is saying: I belong to no man, I am my own person, strong and resilient; my life is mine to live as I choose and share with whom so ever I wish.

Although Eve is my craft name, I celebrate my Lillith shadow, and know that she is very much a part of me.

Eve