Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Corinthians 7:8

"But I say to the unmarried and to widows, It is good for them if they abide even as I." — 1 Corinthians 7:8 (ASV)

I say therefore.—Better, Now what I say is, ... Widows are here joined with those who have not been married. Otherwise, discussion might have arisen as to whether the Apostle had intended his advice for them also.

It has been curiously conjectured (by Luther among others), from the passage where St. Paul recommends widows to abide even as I. that the Apostle was himself a widower. This, however, requires the word “unmarried” to be restricted to widowers, which is quite inadmissible. Even if this were admissible, the deduction from it that St. Paul was a widower could scarcely be considered logical.

The almost universal tradition of the early Church was that St. Paul was never married. Unless we can imagine his having been married and his wife dead before the stoning of St. Stephen (which is scarcely possible, Acts 7:58), the truth of that tradition is evident. (See Philippians 4:3.) Even as I; that is, unmarried.