Paul’s instructions to
the unmarried and widows in 7:8 strike a number of familiar notes. Once again a
particular state is recommended as καλὸν, good (cf. 7:1, and later 7:26); and for the second
time in as many verses Paul expresses the wish that his readers follow his own
example. A literal reading of the Greek is ‘it is good for them [those who
once were married but now are not] if they remain as I also [κἀγώ] am’, and this has
led some scholars to speculate that Paul himself, like those whom he addresses,
was a widower. It would certainly be highly unusual for a person in Paul’s position
never to have married, since marriage was very much the norm in both Jewish and
Graeco-Roman culture. It has already been noted that Paul’s preference for
celibacy in this letter runs contrary to custom; when it leads him to encourage
widows not to remarry, it also runs contrary to law. The Augustan laws made
marriage mandatory for women between twenty and fifty years of age, and for men
over twenty-five. Under the Lex Julia, widows were required to remarry in ten
months, and a divorced woman in six. Lack of compliance was penalized;
cooperation and the production of sufficient children were rewarded with
control over one’s own financial affairs. How effective these regulations
actually were in practice is hard to gauge, but at the very least they reflect
a level of unease about threats to the household which a call to celibacy such
as Paul’s would have done little to assuage. (Gillian
Beattie, Women and Marriage in Paul and His Early Interpreters [Journal
for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series 296; London: T&T Clark,
2005], 26-27)
