Help-meet

"Help-meet" (sometimes rendered "helpmeet" as one word) translates the Hebrew phrase 'ēzer kenegdô in Genesis 2:18: "It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a help meet for him" — meaning a helper corresponding to him or suitable to him. The word 'ēzer (helper, ally) is used elsewhere of God himself as Israel's help (Ps. 121:2; 124:8), carrying no connotation of inferiority. The phrase kenegdô means "as his counterpart" or "equal and opposite" — someone who corresponds to the man and complements him. The creation of woman from the man's rib (Gen. 2:21–23) and Adam's recognition of her as "bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh" grounds the institution of marriage as the divinely ordained partnership of man and woman. Paul's language of mutual submission (Eph. 5:21–33) and Peter's description of women as "fellow heirs of the grace of life" (1 Pet. 3:7) build on this foundational creation account.