Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives;
Ver. 1. Be in subjection to your husbands] Yet with a limitation: subject the wife must be to her husband's lawful commands and restraints. It is too much that Plutarch lays as a law of wedlock on the wife, to acknowledge and worship the same gods, and none else but those whom her husband doth. Serena the empress suffered martyrdom under her cruel husband Diocletian; and Elizabeth, wife of Joachimus, the Prince Elector of Brandenburg, was forced to flee to the court of Saxony, A. D 1527, from the perpetual imprisonment provided for her by her Popish husband (for receiving the sacrament of the Lord's supper in both kinds), and died in banishment. (Luther in Epistol.)
Be won by the conversation] κερδηθησονται, i.e. Be prepared for conversion, as Austin's father and himself were, by the piety of his mother Monica. The Greek word for won signifieth gained, εποπτευοντες; and seems to allude to those good servants,Matthew 25:20,23, who traded their talents, and doubled them with their good husbandry.