Mutual authority

The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. The clauses are symmetrical.

1 Corinthians 7:3–5 is Paul's most explicit teaching on sexual mutuality within marriage. The husband's body, Paul says, is owned by his wife; the wife's body is owned by her husband. The Greek verb exousiazō ("to exercise authority") is used of both parties identically. In a first-century legal context where a wife's body was almost universally understood as her husband's property and not the reverse, Paul's double-sided claim is startling. The symmetry is the point: whatever authority one spouse has over the other's body is matched exactly on the other side.