The wife is bound by the law as long as her husband lives; but if her husband is dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord.
All Commentaries on 1 Corinthians 7:39 Go To 1 Corinthians 7
Tertullian of Carthage
AD 220
You have the law from the patriarchs indeed; you have the apostle enjoining people to marry in the Lord.
You degrade your god, O Marcion, when you make him circumscribed at all by the Creator's time. Assuredly also, when (the apostle) rules that marriage should be "only in the Lord".
Further, if we set down in order the higher and happier grades of bodily patience, (we find that)it is she who is entrusted by holiness with the care of continence of the flesh: she keeps the widow.
Let us now turn our attention to the next best advice, in regard of human infirmity; admonished hereto by the examples of certain, who, when an opportunity for the practice of Continence has been offered them, by divorce, or by the decease of the husband, have not only thrown away the opportunity of attaining so great a good, but not even in their remarriage have chosen to be mindful of the rule that "above all.
.
.".
Again, the woman, if intending to marry, has to marry "in the Lord; ".
You ought to take more pains to please him for whose sake you have not preferred to please God! Such (conduct) the Psychics will have it the apostle approved, or else totally failed to think about, when he wrote: "The woman is bound for such length of time as her husband liveth; but if he shall have died, she is free; whom she will let her marry, only in the Lord."
