"Nor can the Apostle mean that Eve only sinned; or that she only was Deceived, for if Adam sinned willfully and knowingly, he became the greater Transgressor"

Mary Astell challenges the familiar move of grounding women’s subordination in Eve’s deception, turning a well-worn prooftext against its patriarchal use. She notes that if Adam sinned willfully, without being deceived, then by the ordinary measures of moral theology his guilt is actually heavier: full knowledge and deliberate consent aggravate fault, while deception mitigates it. The claim that women ought to bear a special, enduring blame because Eve was deceived therefore collapses under its own logic. If culpability justifies rule, the un-deceived offender would be least entitled to govern; if susceptibility to deception justifies subjection, it calls for instruction and compassion, not domination.

Astell also implies a hermeneutic caution about invoking the Apostle. Paul’s remark concerning Eve cannot sensibly be taken to mean that only she sinned or that her fault grounds an eternal political order. Rather than exonerating Adam or condemning women as a class, Paul addresses a particular ecclesial concern; subsequent readers err when they turn a contextual admonition into a universal disability.

Her argument exposes a deeper inconsistency: men often claim rational superiority as the basis for authority, yet when apportioning blame they assign the greater weight to the less knowing party. If reason is their title to rule, the willful breach of Adam subverts that title; if moral agency is shared, so too is responsibility. The Fall thus yields no legitimate charter for male sovereignty over women.

By reframing culpability, Astell advances a vision of mutual accountability in marriage and society. Partners are moral equals, each answerable to God, neither endowed with a scriptural license to command the other. Scripture must be read with integrity, not pressed into service of secular interest. The lesson is not the permanent disgrace of women but the universal need for wisdom, education, and virtue, goods that belong to both sexes and that alone can ground just authority.