‘To the woman he said, “I will greatly multiply your pain, especially in childbearing, in pain you will produce children, and your desire shall be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” '
In Genesis 1 the producing of children is a duty, a privilege and a blessing, but now that duty, privilege and blessing will be accompanied by intense pain. It is in the mercy of God that, in spite of what she has done, she will still be allowed the blessing of producing children. It is the punishment of God that this will be achieved through much pain.
But she will not be able to avoid it even if she wants to. ‘Your desire will be for your husband and he will rule over you'. She will not be able to avoid her punishment, for her craving for her husband will ensure that she seeks him out and his authority over her will guarantee her part in procreation. There is here a clear loss of status. The man's authority is now seen as more emphatic and overbearing.
“Your pain, especially in childbearing” is literally ‘your pain and your childbearing'. The word for ‘pain' (atsab) is not the usual one for pain in childbearing and is used in the next verse for man's punishment in toil. Thus it refers to the more general misery of life. Life is to become more miserable. That will, however, include discomfort in child-bearing. It is significant that, in theory at least, child-bearing can be without pain. Some even achieve it. Thus prior to this event that would have been true for Eve. But now the stress and tension produced by sin will result in agony in child-birth. The word ‘atsab' is deliberately used because two of its consonants connect to ‘ets' (tree), thus indicating pain and suffering arising from the tree.