📖WEB · 1 Corinthians 7:4
What does 1 Corinthians 7:4 mean?
"The wife doesn’t have authority over her own body, but the husband. Likewise also the husband doesn’t have authority over his own body, but the wife."
— 1 Corinthians 7:4 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
Now concerning the things about which you wrote to me: it is good for a man not to touch a woman.
But, because of sexual immoralities, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband.
Let the husband give his wife the affection owed her, and likewise also the wife her husband.
The wife doesn’t have authority over her own body, but the husband. Likewise also the husband doesn’t have authority over his own body, but the wife.
Don’t deprive one another, unless it is by consent for a season, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer, and may be together again, that Satan doesn’t tempt you because of your lack of self-control.
But this I say by way of concession, not of commandment.
Yet I wish that all men were like me. However each man has his own gift from God, one of this kind, and another of that kind.
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