1 Peter 3:1-6

Duty of wives (Ephesians 5:21-24; Colossians 3:18; Titus 2:4) Submissiveness and true adornment. τοῖς ἰδίοις ἀνδράσιν, your own husbands, the motive for submissiveness, Ephesians 5:22; Titus 2:4. St. Peter assumes knowledge of the reason alleged by St. Paul (Eph. l.c.; 1 Corinthians 9:3) after Genesis 3:16, αὐτός σου κυριεύσει. καὶ εἰ … λόγῳ, even if in some cases your husbands are disobedient to the word (1 Peter 2:8), i.e., remain heathens in spite of the preaching of the Gospel. St. Paul found it necessary to impress upon the Corinthian Church that this incompatibility of religion did not justify dissolution of marriage (1 Corinthians 12:10 ff.). ἄνευ λόγου, without word from their wives. Peter deliberately introduces λ. in its ordinary sense immediately after the technical τῷ λ. an example of what the grammarians call antanaclasis and men a pun. In his provision for the present and future welfare of the heathen husbands whose wives come under his jurisdiction he echoes the natural aspiration of Jews and Greeks; so Ben Sira said, a silent woman is a gift of the Lord … a loud crying woman and a scold shall be sought out to drive away enemies (Sir 26:14; Sir 26:27) and Sophocles, Silence is the proper ornament (κόσμος) for women (Ajax 293). St. Paul forbids women to preach or even ask questions at church meeting (1 Corinthians 14:34 : at Corinth they had been used to prophesy and pray). ἵνα … κερδηθήσονται, be won, cf. ἵνα κερδήσω in 1 Corinthians 9:20 ff. = ἵνα … σώσω, 1 Corinthians 9:22, (cf. 1 Corinthians 7:16.).