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'In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread' (Genesis III, 17). This the savage does not do in the same measure as civilized mankind. Work and civilization are misfortunes so terrible that the biblical narrator believes they can only be explained by a curse of the Almighty.
A number of Babylonian myths concerning the quest for immortality are discussed in relation to the concept of the Divine King who is the father who is killed by his son. A study of African myths on the subject of death leads to the conclusion that it is believed to originate as a consequence of someone's ill will, a projection of man's own hostile impulses. In a Yuma myth, 'death is due to incest because the mother-child relation contains not only the element of tenderness but also the more aggressive desire of coitus. Hence we might even say that if death is caused by hatred and lack of love from the ontogenetic point of view, … anxiety is due to the conflict with the father and unsatisfied desires regarding the mother.'
'The fruit [apple-breast] is taboo because it belongs to father and can only be acquired at the price of fighting with father… The father is the enemy because the beloved woman is the mother.' Adam defied the father, had intercourse with the mother and was then afflicted with remorse. 'Anxiety, shame, … and punishment then appear in the world … the Oedipus complex is repressed and gives rise to the superego.' Coitus is a sin from the point of view of the introjected father, or superego. 'Coitus itself is a punishment when regarded from the superego point of view.'
The change from a primitive to a civilized (superego) state corresponds, in the life of the individual, to the change from childhood to sexual maturity. Genitality is achieved at the cost of expulsion from the Garden of Eden (infantile pleasures). The other reasons for man's fall spring from his aggressive impulses.
This long article contains a wealth of valuable material about many variants of the Eden myth