Lessons relating to marriage and celibacy. Virginity is preferable to a married state.
7:1. Now concerning the things whereof you wrote to me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman.
7:2. But for fear of fornication, let every man have his own wife: and let every woman have her own husband.
Have his own wife.... That is, keep to his wife, which he hath. His meaning is not to exhort the unmarried to marry: on the contrary, he would have them rather continue as they are. (Ver. 7:8.) But he speaks here to them that are already married; who must not depart from one another, but live together as they ought to do in the marriage state.
7:3. Let the husband render the debt to his wife: and the wife also in like manner to the husband.
7:4. The wife hath not power of her own body: but the husband. And in like manner the husband also hath not power of his own body: but the wife.
7:5. Defraud not one another, except, perhaps, by consent, for a time, that you may give yourselves to prayer: and return together again, lest Satan tempt you for your incontinency.
7:6. But I speak this by indulgence, not by commandment.
By indulgence.... That is, by a condescension to your weakness.
7:7. For I would that all men were even as myself. But every one hath his proper gift from God: one after this manner, and another after that.