007:001 I now deal with the subjects mentioned in your letter. It is well for a man to abstain altogether from marriage. 007:002 But because there is so much fornication every man should have a wife of his own, and every woman should have a husband. 007:003 Let a man pay his wife her due, and let a woman also pay her husband his. 007:004 A married woman is not mistress of her own person: her husband has certain rights. In the same way a married man is not master of his own person: his wife has certain rights. 007:005 Do not refuse one another, unless perhaps it is just for a time and by mutual consent, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer and may then associate again; lest the Adversary begin to tempt you because of your deficiency in self-control. 007:006 Thus much in the way of concession, not of command. 007:007 Yet I would that everybody lived as I do; but each of us has his own special gift from God--one in one direction and one in another. 007:008 But I tell the unmarried, and women who are widows, that it is well for them to remain as I am. 007:009 If, however, they cannot maintain self-control, by all means let them marry; for marriage is better than the fever of passion. 007:010 But to those already married my instructions are--yet not mine, but the Lord's--that a wife is not to leave her husband; 007:011 or if she has already left him, let her either remain as she is or be reconciled to him; and that a husband is not to send away his wife. 007:012 To the rest it is I who speak--not the Lord. If a brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, let him not send her away. 007:013 And a woman who has an unbelieving husband--if he consents to live with her, let her not separate from him. 007:014 For, in such cases, the unbelieving husband has become--and is-- holy through union with a Christian woman, and the unbelieving wife is holy through union with a Christian brother. Otherwise your children would be unholy, but in reality they have a place among God's people. 007:015 If, however, the unbeliever is determined to leave, let him or her do so. Under such circumstances the Christian man or woman is no slave; God has called us to live lives of peace. 007:016 For what assurance have you, O woman, as to whether you will save your husband? Or what assurance have you, O man, as to whether you will save your wife? 007:017 Only, whatever be the condition in life which the Lord has assigned to each individual--and whatever the condition in which he was living when God called him--in that let him continue.