1 Peter 3:7

dwell with them according to knowledge It is significant that while the Apostle dwells emphatically on the case of Christian women who have unbelieving husbands, his exhortations to men seem to take for granted that their wives were of one mind with them. In the then existing state of society this was, of course, natural enough. The wife might be converted without the husband, but hardly the husband without the wife. The word for "dwell together" (not found elsewhere) is clearly intended to cover all the relations of married life. In those relations men were to act "according to knowledge," i.e. with a clear perception of all that marriage involved, and of the right relation in which each of the two parties to the contract stood to the other. The wife was not to be treated as a slave or a concubine, nor again as the ruler and mistress of the house, but as a helpmeet in the daily work of life, a sharer in its higher hopes and duties, the mother of children to be brought up "in the nurture and admonition of the Lord."

giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel The word for "giving," not found elsewhere in the New Testament, implies an equitable apportionment, that for "wife" is strictly an adjective agreeing with "vessel," and would therefore be rightly rendered by female. In the term "vessel," which finds a parallel in 1 Thessalonians 4:4, we have the thought that all, men and women alike, are "instruments" which God has made for His service (comp. 2 Timothy 2:20-21). The husband is bound to think of himself in that light. He must recognise himself as the stronger vessel of the two, and therefore, because noblesse oblige, he must render due honour to the weaker, seeking to strengthen and purify and elevate it.

as being heirs together of the grace of life The MSS. present various readings, some making the word "heirs" refer to the husbands and some to the wives. As, in either case, stress is laid on their being joint heirs, there is practically no difference. The "life" in which both are thus called to be sharers is, of course, none other than the eternal life which consists in knowing God. (John 17:3.)

that your prayers be not hindered Some MSS. give a stronger form of the verb, "that your prayers be not cut off (or, stopped)." The more natural interpretation is that which refers the pronoun to both the husband and the wife. Where there was no reciprocated respect, each recognising the high vocation of the other, there could be no union of heart and soul in prayer. Where the husband thought of the wife only as ministering to his comfort or his pleasures, as one whom he might, as both Jewish and Roman law permitted, repudiate at will, there could be no recognition of the fact that she shared his highest hopes. The words clearly include, though they do not dwell on them, the special hindrances to prayer referred to in 1 Corinthians 7:3-5.