Where is Lauryn Hill and other Musings on Genesis 3:16

I chose a road of passion and pain
Sacrificed too much and waited in vain
Gave up my power ceased being queen
Addicted to love like the drug of a fiend
-- I Used To Love Him from The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill

To the woman He said, I will greatly multiply your grief and your suffering in pregnancy and the pangs of childbearing; with spasms of distress you will bring forth children. Yet your desire and craving will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.
-- Genesis 3:16 (Amplified)

During one of those 360-degree conversations that always happen when literate, music-loving, black women gather, the question arises, periodically, “Where is Lauryn Hill?”

As is the custom for these kinds of free flowing dialogues on love, sex, faith, politics, etc., my first response was strictly for entertainment purposes. “What happened? What happened is that Marley Boy, that’s what happened!”

That got a collective belly laugh as we went on to the next topic, but it made me think about a much larger question. Why does the fall of a woman always seem to involve loving a man?

Now the truth is we don’t know what has “happened” to Lauryn Hill. What I do know is that when Lauryn came on the scene, she was a breath of fresh air. Genuinely talented, naturally beautiful and undeniably intelligent she was a bright, shining example of what is best in young, Black womanhood and the best possible (at the time) reflection of the hip-hop generation. Perhaps we just put too much on it—imbued her image with too much power and invested too much in what she represented to us—namely a reprieve from the dominant brain-dead, booty-shaking bimbo iconography that seemed to dominate music and pained so many of us. But for whatever she meant to us, we loved Lauryn and we were proud to be associated with her.

But just as fast as she came and dazzled us with her brilliance, she went. And in the place of the Lauryn we knew, there was a new creature—stripped down, and bare beyond recognizing—claiming that the woman we fell in love with was all a lie. That we had all be deceived, once again, by the sinister spin machine of the ‘Babylon’ music industry. Personally, I found myself repulsed by what seemed to be a big, fat case of artistic arrogance thumbing its nose at the rubes (us) that couldn’t tell the difference between art and artifice.

Then the rumors began to surface that her husband was behind the so-called melt down that led to this new threadbare Lauryn. Demanding, and controlling her every move, there were reports that he had been known to manhandle her—that her will was being subjugated physically, emotionally and spiritually by the man she loved.

Again, no one knows if these allegations about Rohan Marley are true. Only two people know what goes on in that relationship, and they aren’t talking. And I am old enough to know that everything isn’t everything (shameless Lauryn Hill lyric pun here) between couples, particularly those seen in the public eye.

But it was very easy, almost too easy, to believe. Easy because we all have in our collective memory stories of women who have lost their money, dignity, freedom, mind, life in the process of loving. Statistics on the instances of violence against women, prison rolls, and our own experiences support our sense that loving a man contains an inherent danger—that of losing our selves.

Often when I think of women losing themselves to men, I am reminded of the scripture in Genesis 3:16.

To the woman He said, I will greatly multiply your grief and your suffering in pregnancy and the pangs of childbearing; with spasms of distress you will bring forth children. Yet your desire and craving will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.

In context, God is telling Adam and Eve the consequences of their disobedience to his command regarding the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Each of them has consequences that are specific to them as well as consequences that they experience together. The scripture refers to the consequence that Eve, and by association, we as women, will experience as a result of the entrance of sin into the world.

I have read this scripture many, many times, but only in the last few years have I come to suspect a connection between the second part of this scripture, and the experiences of women who give of themselves beyond sacrifice for the sake of love, only to be “ruled” over by the man they love. Could this be the reason? Can I point to this as God’s hint to us about the nature of relationships between men and women? Is there inherent pain in trying to create something tangible out of our relationships? Are we as women driven, almost desperately so, to have relationships, even at our own peril?

The post-modern womanist in me wants to reject that notion out of hand. I dare not admit in the day and age of Oprah and Hillary that it is possible for me to lose myself over a man. I am too smart, self-assured, together, faithful, etc.—and yet I have done just that and more for the sake of a relationship.

It is the promise of the magical and sometimes mythological romantic love union that we, as women, long for—the holy grail of connectedness, affirmation and security. There’s a little bit of Effie White in all of us, simultaneously demanding, pleading and hoping that the one we love will love us back in the same soul-deep way that we love them. But just like Effie, this almost desperate pursuit of love puts us at risk of being “ruled over” and ultimately rejected.

Does that mean we doomed to forever be the footstool of the men we love? To use an analogy from sports, the best defense is a good offense. Perhaps we just need to be on guard for this inheritance from our mother Eve—to know it’s a part of our nature to give until there’s nothing left, look for the warning signs, and slow down when we see that we’re heading towards oblivion.

So, to answer at least one of the questions that I posed initially, I don’t know what really happened to Lauryn Hill, but if she indeed “fell off” for love, I guess can’t really blame her.