the severance could not end there. When Adam and Eve admit their guilt -- a graceless and skulking admission -- they chisel the fissure more deeply, divorcing themselves from one another and from creation. "It was this woman you gave to be my help," says Adam. "She gave me the fruit, and I ate it." Eve passes the blame in turn. "It was this serpent you created! He tricked me, and I ate the fruit."What can we expect should follow? The very earth shuns us. The ground shall bear thorns and thistles, and in the sweat of his brow must man eat his bread; the woman will bear children in pain, and will have to submit to the domination, not the loving headship, of her husband. Their children grow up in separate pursuits -- Abel a shepherd, Cain a farmer -- and in envy for a blessing he lacks and does not sincerely desire, Cain slays Abel, not in rage, but in cold malice. When God accosts him, as he once accosted Adam, we see in Cain's reply that the fissure has widened into a chasm. "Am I my brother's keeper?" he sneers.There you have the motto for a culture of divorce. Cain's words assume that the brother, the parent, the spouse, the neighbor is not worth keeping. What to do with one who obstructs my will, or casts a pall over my daydreams? If I can get away with it, and if I am angry enough, I put him away.
That gives a new dimension to the significance of Joseph's being minded to put Mary away and then deciding against it, doesn't it?
