The verse includes three reasons for living with the wives with understanding and for bestowing them with honor.

First, the wife is "the weaker partner." Several common reactions are fatal to correct interpretation. Some people are simply offended by this. Among them, those who affirm biblical inerrancy become confused, and those who do not just choose to disagree with the verse. Then, some people attribute this to the culturally accepted belief of the day. Still others dilute the verse to a point that it completely loses its significance in this context. But Peter offers it as a reason to treat the wife with understanding and honor. Apparently, one of the things that the husband should understand is that his wife is "weaker."

Peter does not specify in what sense the wife is the weaker partner. Spiritual inferiority is ruled out by the next phrase, since he writes that Christian wives are "heirs with you of the gracious gift of life." This is the very point that Paul makes in Galatians 3:28. Remember that this – that is, spiritual equality in Christ – and nothing else is in view both in this verse and in Galatians. Peter has just stated that the wives are to submit to their husbands, so that when he mentions their spiritual equality here, we are not to think that he suddenly contradicts himself. Husbands and wives are spiritual equals, but husbands have the authority in the home.

Commentators rush to deny that Peter is referring to intellectual inferiority. My opinion is that women are not intellectually inferior. Or more precisely, I have not come across any persuasive argument or evidence showing that women are inherently less capable than men in learning and thinking. However, to suppose without reason that Peter does not have this mind is to beg the question. Not many commentators even attempt to justify their exclusion of intellectual inferiority from the meaning of "weaker" in this verse, and those who do invariably fail to convince.

It might not be what Peter means, but we cannot discard the possibility just because we think it would be insulting to women. Our interest is not to put down women in any way, although it is healthy to crush the gender pride that women have built up over the years – not that men should have any such pride. So what if the Bible calls you weaker in some way? Would you rather renounce the Scripture than to be humbled?

That said, there might be biblical reasons to exclude certain kinds of inferiority from consideration. We have already mentioned that Christian women are spiritual equals with Christian men. Since the spiritual is inseparably connected with the moral, we may assume that Peter is not referring to spiritual or moral weakness. Then, Proverbs 31 states that women can possess excellent character (v. 10), skill (v. 13), economic sense (v. 16-18), strength (v. 17), compassion (v. 20), and wisdom (v. 26). However, although it says that all these qualities might be found in women, verse 10 implies that there are not many who possess them (but neither does it say that the percentage is lower than that of men). So Proverbs 31 alone cannot overturn the possibility that women are in general "weaker" in any or all of these areas, that is, except for the spiritual and the moral, which we have legitimately excluded.

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