1 Corinthians 7:25-40, The present distress

Wright links the present distress to a severe grain shortage across the Greek world in the years after Paul left Corinth, most likely in AD 51, which shook colonists' trust that Rome would keep them fed; Keener and his notes point to the Jewish expectation of great suffering just before the end, when marrying and having children only made things harder. Virgin usually meant a woman, the only one expected to avoid sex before marriage outside Judaism (Keener). Cynics avoided marriage as a distraction, with Hipparchia, wife of Crates, the only recorded exception (Keener and his notes). Parents, especially fathers, arranged marriages; Jewish men often married around twenty, Greek men around thirty to women about twelve years younger, and breaking a betrothal was an official act (Keener and his notes). Whether 7:36-38 speaks to the fathers of virgins or to their fiancés is debated, and Keener finds no evidence in this period for the spiritual engagements of later Christianity. Free, in talk of divorce and widowhood, always meant free to remarry; widows, unlike virgins, had much say in whom they married, and Augustus had used taxation to push younger Roman widows toward a second marriage (Keener and his notes).