In the Vulgate, Jerome's Latin translation of the Bible, Genesis 3:16 reads:
”Sub viri potestate eris et ipse dominabitur tui.”
(“Under the man’s authority will you be and he will rule over you”)
This translation does not follow the original text found in the Hebrew Bible.
Wª'el- 'iysheek tªshuwqaateek wªhuw' yimshaal- baak
The Hebrew word teshuwqah does not have the meanings "power" or "authority."
Jerome knew this to be the case:
“And that after displeasing God she was immediately subjected to the man, and began to turn to her husband.” (Against Jovinianus, Book I, 27).
Also Augustine, Jerome's friend and pen-pal, knew that the word teshuwqah had the meaning "to turn."
"Yet He does not dismiss him without counsel, holy, just, and good. “Fret not thyself,” He says, “for unto thee shall be his turning, and thou shall rule over him.” [Genesis 4:7] Over his brother, does He mean? Most certainly not. Over what, then, but sin? For He had said, “Thou hast sinned,” and then He added, “Fret not thyself, for to thee shall be its turning, and thou shall rule over it.” And the “turning” of sin to the man can be understood of his conviction that the guilt of sin can be laid at no other man’s door but his own. For this is the health-giving medicine of penitence, and the fit plea for pardon; so that, when it is said, “To thee its turning,” we must not supply “shall be,” but we must read, “To thee let its turning be,” understanding it as a command, not as a prediction. For then shall a man rule over his sin when he does not prefer it to himself and defend it, but subjects it by repentance; otherwise he that becomes protector of it shall surely become its prisoner. But if we understand this sin to be that carnal concupiscence of which the apostle says, “The flesh lusteth against the spirit,” among the fruits of which lust he names envy, by which assuredly Cain was stung and excited to destroy his brother, then we may properly supply the words “shall be,” and read, “To thee shall be its turning, and thou shalt rule over it.” For when the carnal part which the apostle calls sin, in that place where he says, “It is not I who do it, but sin that dwelleth in me,” that part which the philosophers also call vicious, and which ought not to lead the mind, but which the mind ought to rule and restrain by reason from illicit motions,—when, then, this part has been moved to perpetrate any wickedness, if it be curbed and if it obey the word of the apostle, “Yield not your members instruments of unrighteousness unto sin,” it is turned towards the mind and subdued and conquered by it, so that reason rules over it as a subject. It was this which God enjoined on him who was kindled with the fire of envy against his brother, so that he sought to put out of the way him whom he should have set as an example. “Fret not thyself,” or compose thyself, He says: withhold thy hand from crime; let not sin reign in your mortal body to fulfill it in the lusts thereof, nor yield your members instruments of unrighteousness unto sin. “For to thee shall be its turning,” so long as you do not encourage it by giving it the rein, but bridle it by quenching its fire. “And thou shall rule over it;” for when it is not allowed any external actings, it yields itself to the rule of the governing mind and righteous will, and ceases from even internal motions. There is something similar said in the same divine book of the woman, when God questioned and judged them after their sin, and pronounced sentence on them all,—the devil in the form of the serpent, the woman and her husband in their own persons. For when He had said to her, “I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow shall thou bring forth children,” then He added, “and thy turning shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.” What is said to Cain about his sin, or about the vicious concupiscence of his flesh, is here said of the woman who had sinned; and we are to understand that the husband is to rule his wife as the soul rules the flesh. And therefore, says the apostle, “He that loveth his wife, loveth himself; for no man ever yet hated his own flesh.” This flesh, then, is to be healed, because it belongs to ourselves: is not to be abandoned to destruction as if it were alien to our nature." (The city of God, Book XV, Ch 7)
Note how Augustine sees the "turning" as a commandment from God instead of a consequence of sin. Jerome agreed, wherefore he changed Genesis 3:16 into a commandment for the woman to turn to the man in order to become his subject. And because Jerome changed the verse in the fourth century, Thomas Aquinas was faced with the question why the woman was created before sin, if her subjection began after sin.
“Further, subjection and limitation were a result of sin, for to the woman was it said after sin (Genesis 3:16): "Thou shalt be under the man's power"; and Gregory says that, "Where there is no sin, there is no inequality." But woman is naturally of less strength and dignity than man; "for the agent is always more honorable than the patient," as Augustine says (Gen. ad lit. xii, 16). Therefore woman should not have been made in the first production of things before sin (Summa, First Part, Question 92, Objection 1).
It was this question that caused Thomas to create the twofold subjection, in which the woman was subjected from creation and as a result of sin.
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