Origin of Gender Role: Providing

We are told men were created to provide for women, and that providing is part of the "role" men were created to fulfill already in the original garden. John Piper writes in "Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood":

"It is not a curse that man must work in the field to get bread for the family or that woman bears children. The curse is that these spheres of life are made difficult and frustrating.... Evidently God had in mind from the beginning that the man would take special responsibility for sustaining the family through bread-winning labor[.]" (p.42-43).

Bread-winning labor. In the garden? Let's see what the Bible has to say about it:

"You are free to eat from any tree in the garden" (Gen 2:16-17, NIV)

You are free to eat from any tree. Where's the bread?

If the first humans ate freely from the trees, why would Adam have tilled the soil in order to provide for Eve?  

"... Hierarchical theologers stumble over each other to inform us that the man was created to provide for the woman, and providing gives the man more rights. Work is, of course, an essential part of our lives, for as our original parents were banished from the temperate garden into the harsh new world, tilling, sowing, and harvesting became a necessity. But however necessary providing for our families is today, it was not the reason for Adam’s creation, for the first humans ate freely from the trees in the garden. Had God truly intended the man to be a provider instead of a care-free gardener, he would have put the man outside the garden to till the soil until his forehead dripped with sweat, while the woman waited for him in the garden. But we do not read about it in the creation account, for why would God separate the man from the woman, having already said it was not good for the man to be alone?" (Genesis 3: The Origin of Gender Roles, 56-57)

The man didn't provide for the woman in the garden; God was their provider. Sin has made providing necessary, and Piper is correct in saying that providing has become difficult and at times frustrating because of sin. But in the beginning it was not so. Hear what Eve has to say about it:
 

"The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden" (Gen 3:2, NIV)

Eve doesn't mention bread, or bacon, or any other food item that Adam would have won or brought home. She talks only about fruit; fruit that was provided by God.

If God provided for the first humans, why do our theologians try to make Adam into a bread-winner? The answer is simple: because if sin is the origin of the man's role as a provider (because of his physical strength), then the origin of the man's authority is also found in the world of sin. With this conclusion egalitarian Christians agree.