A few days ago I took the pleasure to show off some of the mythological knowledge I posses (just for modest purposes).
I explained the mythological meaning of Lilith to my mother… and the look on her face was priceless when she realised that my oldest cousin named his second child after a baby eating demon (as the name is not common in the Germanic region, the meaning may be another as well). But when you look more closely at why she became a demon – under what circumstances – then some social patterns become clear (including social patterns of angels and the other heavenly creatures which hop about). I wish a lot more of us knew that Adam had another woman before Eve – then maybe more would realise that paradise has never been what the church seeks to make it.
Lilith was created out of the same earth like her male fellow Adam. Perhaps that is exactly the reason why she wanted to be treated equal to him (she didn’t want to be equal to God, No that would be surely blasphemy, but just another human being with a different sex). Obviously that was not the wish of both the more male characters in Paradise. Thus God’s ‘justice’ it was to ban a perfectly healthy woman from the heaven-like realms and let her drop into despair.
Lilith does not only exist in the Jewish version of the Bible, but in a variety of other forms in other cultures where ‘lilu’ or ‘lilitu’ circles around the same meaning, night/spirit/ or even air.
Now let me sketch social patterns a bit clearer. Our ‘heroine’ had a wish long before the vote for women was established, up from the 8th century. And as the Bible or other texts where she was mentioned is ”only” a product of someone’s great imagination, a real person actually came up with the idea (although I believe it is far more) that women are human beings as well and that physically, in theory, they could be equal to men.
Long before Da Vinci, she is perceived as a demon and thus is obvious how much people (particularly men, sorry guys!) feared being equal with women. They demonised women, cursed them so even many generations later would not dare to give equal rights to women. You may speculate on the reasons: loss of wealth, status or reputation perhaps – only a man can know.
Maybe also on a general note: instead of providing support for improvement, society casts out those who have ideas and thoughts long before society is ready for them – a protection mechanism for the communities on our planet.
To close this short lesson, I shall throw a little bit of Greek into the crowds: scholars aren’t quite sure if Lilith exists at all in the Christian Bible, but in the Jewish Bible she is definitely a Hapax Legomenon.