Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Peter 3:7

"Ye husbands, in like manner, dwell with [your wives] according to knowledge, giving honor unto the woman, as unto the weaker vessel, as being also joint-heirs of the grace of life; to the end that your prayers be not hindered." — 1 Peter 3:7 (ASV)

Likewise, you husbands.—The subjection is not to be all one-sided, though the husband’s subjection to the wife will be of a different kind from the wife’s to him. We should hardly take this as a separate paragraph from the preceding one, but rather as a corollary added to it, to correct a false impression that could otherwise have been conveyed.

Dwell.—Rather, dwelling. The participle is attached to the previous sentences, just as in 1 Peter 2:16; 1 Peter 2:18; and 1 Peter 3:1. However, St. Peter is reluctant to say to the husbands “submitting yourselves” (though it is implied in the “likewise”), and conveys the deference that husbands are to pay using other terms, such as “according to knowledge,” and “giving honour.”

With them.—The entire sentence order needs to be rearranged as follows: You husbands, likewise, dwelling according to knowledge, as with a weaker vessel, with what is female, apportioning honour as to joint heirs also of a grace of life. To understand this very difficult passage, we must remember what St. Peter's objective is throughout all these instructions: namely, to commend Christianity to suspicious onlookers. Therefore, we may well suppose here that he is thinking chiefly of the case of believing husbands (Jewish) married to unbelieving wives (Jewish also), thus presenting the counter-picture to that of 1 Peter 3:1.

And the first thing is that they are to “dwell with” these wives, not to divorce them, nor to cease from conjugal cohabitation with them; such harshness would do little to make the Christian religion attractive among the Jewish homes to which the divorced wife would turn. (See 1 Corinthians 7:12 and following—a passage that must have almost been in St. Peter’s mind.)

According to knowledge.—This phrase, which is like an adverb, such as “scientifically, intelligently,” means that the husband is to study to grasp the full implications of the situation, to take everything into account. Husband and wife will not get along smoothly by chance, without pains taken to understand the situation. (See 1 Thessalonians 4:4; you should know.)

To the wife, as to the weaker vessel.—Or rather, as we now take it, as with a weaker vessel, with what is female. This explains the saying “according to knowledge.” The thing which the husband is especially to understand and take into account is that he is dealing with something less strong than himself.

The whole of chivalry is in these words, and St. Peter (next after Christ) may be considered its founder. Weakness itself, by being weakness, has a claim upon the strong man’s deference and self-submission. The weakness here ascribed to the female sex is primarily that of the body, as we shall see when we consider the word “vessel,” though it may, perhaps, indicate frailty in other respects as well. If the word “vessel” is to be here a description of a “wife,” as some contend regarding 1 Thessalonians 4:4, in a sense in which it does not equally describe a husband, it is difficult to see with what the vessel is compared and pronounced weaker.

“Dwell with the female as with a more delicate vessel or instrument”—than what? If we answer “than yourselves,” it becomes clear that the husbands are, by implication, less delicate vessels. And this is the case.

In the Note on 1 Thessalonians 4:4, it has been shown that the word “vessel” (whether as receptacle or as instrument) is a description of the body, or rather of the self as manifested in the body. The word itself can describe anything made to be useful—machinery, tackle and gear, pots and pans, and, in fact, any kind of apparatus or implement. Here it might be quite accurately translated, “as with a weaker thing or object.”

That which is translated “the wife” is really a neuter adjective, and it is a question whether we are to supply with it the noun “vessel”—“with the female [vessel] as with a vessel which is weaker”—or whether it is to stand absolutely as “the female,” just as we say “the good,” “the evil”—that is, “that which is female.” The latter seems, on the whole, simpler and more forceful, as it calls closer attention to the fact of weakness being inherent in the sex.

Giving honour.—The word for “giving” implies rendering a portion which is due. And what is here called “honour” is not to be understood only as the wife’s maintenance (as some say), though such is probably the interpretation of the word in 1 Timothy 5:17 ; nor is the wife only to be honoured by being consulted in important matters and put in charge of the household. The “honour” to be accorded to wives “as to joint heirs of a grace of life” is the same kind of “honour” as St. Paul, in 1 Thessalonians 4:4, says must be accorded to oneself.

Indeed, from the juxtaposition of three significant words there, we can hardly escape the conclusion that St. Peter was remembering that passage of St. Paul, that every one of you should know how to obtain possession of the vessel of himself in sanctification and honour. It is that chaste respect for the wife which is meant in the Prayer Book by the phrase, “With my body I thee worship.” It means that the husband must not dare to take any liberties with his wife. Would the Christian husband be likely to commend his religion to the unbelieving wife if she found that he took a coarse view of the conjugal tie?

And as being heirs together of the grace of life.—There is here a very intricate question of readings, on which it depends whether the “heirs” are to be nominative or dative, the husbands or the wives. The present annotator prefers, on the whole, to follow Tischendorf, and read the dative: “paying respect as to persons who are also joint heirs (that is, with you) of a grace of life.”

Happily, it comes to much the same thing, the only difference being that in the one case deference is paid to the wife on the ground of her possessing a joint dignity with the husband, and in the other case on the ground that the husband does not possess his dignity except conjointly with the wife. That dignity which they conjointly “inherit”—that is, possess as a gift from God—is called “the grace (or perhaps, a grace) of life.” This is generally interpreted to mean, “the gracious gift of everlasting life.”

Undoubtedly, “life” is often used absolutely in the New Testament to mean eternal life—for example, Matthew 18:8—and it gives a very intelligible sense, that the husband should reverence the wife as being equally with himself an everlasting soul. But this neither gives sufficient force to the conjoint nature of the possession, nor does it take into account the possibility of such a case as, in fact, we suppose to be here intended, namely, of a believing husband and an unbelieving wife. Although, in a sense, the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband (1 Corinthians 7:14), yet not in such a sense as for them to be called conjoint possessors of eternal life. It seems best, therefore, to suppose that the “grace (or dower) of life” which husband and wife hold, not only in common, but conjointly, is life in the natural sense.

This “grace,” this mysterious and divine gift—not apart from one another, but conjointly—they are privileged by the Creator’s primeval benediction (Genesis 1:28) to transmit. They have the power (no Archangel has a similar power) to bring human beings into existence. And considering that such is the dignity and the intention of marriage, a man may well be called upon to revere his partner in this great prerogative.

That your prayers be not hindered—that is, the husbands’ prayers, not necessarily their prayers with their wives. It is easy to feel how the consciousness of having treated a wife with less awe than is indicated by the preceding words would clog the man’s prayers, whether for himself or for his wife’s conversion—the latter being, probably, what St. Peter chiefly meant. Very likely he had in view what St. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 7:5.