About the Author

The book of Genesis 2:18-25 tells the story of the first marriage, the marriage of Adam and Eve after Eve is created from Adam’s rib. As we will see below, the Church Fathers would unravel the symbolism and meaning of this creation and marriage which can help us understand what it means to say that a man and a woman may, in marriage, become one flesh.

The Creation of Eve

Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” ¹⁹ So out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. ²⁰ The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper fit for him. ²¹ So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh; ²² and the rib which the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. ²³ Then the man said,

“This at last is bone of my bones
    and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman, 
    because she was taken out of Man.”

²⁴ Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh. ²⁵ And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed.

[Translation: Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition. Image Credit: The Creation of Eve and the Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise, Style of Jean Colombe, 15th c. The Walters Art Museum]