Peter had used the same word at the beginning of the present section of his letter (1 Peter 2:12). Persons “born again” (1 Peter 1:3,1 Peter 1:23) are simply not understood by people yet unborn (an analogy we fully understand when we think of the womb), and so those “born again” are “sojourners and exiles” (1 Peter 2:11) in the community. To reduce and/or nullify suspicion, it is imperative that these “sojourners and exiles” “keep [their] conduct among the Gentiles honorable.” Their “conduct” needs to look like good deeds (1 Peter 2:13; 1 Peter 2:15, 1 Peter 2:20). This earlier loading of the word “conduct” Peter now imports into his instruction to “wives.”
1 Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives,