Genesis 3:16
“Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.”
KJV
Read in Genesis 3Meaning
The judgment reaches both reproduction and relationship. Life will continue, but significant dimensions of human flourishing will now be experienced through pain and conflict.
Read carefully
'He shall rule over you' describes a consequence within the fallen condition; it should not be casually turned into a moral command authorizing domination or abuse. The Hebrew wording around desire is also debated.
Reflection
Genesis presents relational domination and painful distortion as part of what has gone wrong, not as evidence that cruelty belongs to God's original declaration that creation was good.