Lesson from the Rib

I’m interested in the fact that the Lord created Eve using Adam’s rib.  As the scriptures tell us, “And I, the Lord God, caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam; and he slept, and I took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh in the stead thereof; And the rib which I, the Lord God, had taken from man, made I a woman, and brought her unto the man” (Moses 3:21-22).  I’m not sure whether this was literal or is only symbolic, but either way I think the symbolism can teach us about the relationship that is to be had between a husband and wife.  There are at least two important aspects of the symbolism about taking the rib from Adam.  The first is that the Lord used a body part on the inside of Adam—he didn’t take a hair or something else on the exterior, but rather he used that which was at the center of his being.  Adam made this statement after the rib was taken: “This I know now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of man.”  Adam knew that Eve was really a part of him; they were to be “one flesh” and “cleave” one to another (Moses 3:23).  The name woman itself suggests that man is a part of her and that they are inseparably connected.  The Lord used this image of taking a body part out of Adam and making it a part of Eve to represent their union and teach how husband and wife are to be joined together in the deepest kind of unity.

                The other lesson that we get from the use of a rib has to do with the fact that the rib comes from the side.  The first time I really thought about this was when I was in a church meeting in France and the teacher highlighted the fact that the word for rib (côte) was nearly the same word as side (côté).  His point was that the husband and wife were to work together side by side—neither was meant to dominate the other.  Husband and wife are “obligated to help one another as equal partners,” and that is the way that the Lord set up the very first marriage (Family Proclamation).  Elder Nelson put it this way: “From the rib of Adam, Eve was formed.  Interesting to me is the fact that animals fashioned by our Creator, such as dogs and cats, have thirteen pairs of ribs, but the human being has one less with only twelve.  I presume another bone could have been used, but the rib, coming as it does from the side, seems to denote partnership.  The rib signifies neither dominion nor subservience, but a lateral relationship as partners, to work and to live, side by side” (see here).  One apostle long ago described the lesson this way: “She is not to rule over him nor be trampled upon, or abused by him, but, having been taken out of his side her place is near his heart, to be loved, cherished, protected” (see here).  Eve didn’t come from the foot or the head of Adam; she came from the place that is roughly right in the middle of man and from his side.  From this the Lord surely wanted us to see that man and woman were to be equal companions, working together to face the challenges of mortality with neither dominating the other.  When Adam and Eve first entered the garden, “Adam began to till the earth” and “Eve, also, his wife, did labor with him” (Moses 5:1).  So began the first married couple in mortality, and so should our companionship be defined as well: husbands and wives laboring together with neither ruled by the other.