Submitting was, of course, the form of conduct Peter had been stressing since 1 Peter 2:13—and in the present passage working this out in relation to husbands. The motive for submission (“to every human institution,” 1 Peter 2:13, and so also “to your own husbands,” 1 Peter 3:1) was the need to keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable
(1 Peter 2:12, because unbelieving, unborn society is suspicious of and does not understand “born again” people). Attention to honorable conduct (submission) is an adornment that may, under God’s blessing, win the husband (1 Peter 3:1), that is, prompt the husband to “glorify God on the day of visitation” (1 Peter 2:12).
5 For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their own husbands,