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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
This law was given partly to deter wives from adulterous practices, and partly to secure wives against the rage of their hard-hearted husbands, who otherwise might upon mere suspicions destroy them, or at least put them away.
Quest. Why was there not the same law for the trial of the husband, when the wife was jealous of him?
Answ. This might be either,
1. Because the woman’s sin is greater, because there is not only filthiness and falseness in it, which is also in the man’s sin, but also peculiar unrighteousness in dishonouring his name and family, and transferring his estate to strangers and other men’s children. Or,
2. Because there was not like fear of inconveniences to the husband from the jealousy of the wife, who had not that authority, and power, and opportunity for the putting away or killing of the husband as the husband had over the wive. Or,
3. Because being the inferior and the weaker sex, and more subject to jealousies and groundless suspicions, it was not thought expedient to trust them with such a power or privilege.
Go aside, from the way of religion and justice, or from her faith given to her husband, or to the by-paths of falsehood and filthiness, and that either in truth, or in appearance, and in her husband’s opinion.