1 Corinthians 7:7

Yet I would that all men were even as I myself. Howbeit each man hath his own gift from God, one after this manner, and another after that.

Would that all men ... Paul could not have meant that he wished that all men were unmarried, like himself, but rather that all men had the gift of continence, which is clearly "his own gift from God."

Even as I myself ... The question of whether or not Paul was ever married always surfaces here, there being many dogmatic opinions supporting either view. One thing is certain, Paul was at this time not married. Halley gave his opinion that "This chapter seems to have been written by one who knew something of the intimacies of the married life,"[17] and combined this with the fact of Paul's voting in the Sanhedrin (Acts 26:10), for which, it was said, marriage was a prerequisite, making these the two reasons for supposing that Paul had been married. Shore, however, declared that "The almost universal tradition of the early church was that Paul was never married."[18] However, that tradition appears to be weak. Farrar stated that it "has no certain support of tradition";[19] and the testimony of both Tertullian and Jerome (in favor of the "unmarried" view) he wrote off as inadmissible, because both of them "were biased witnesses."[20] It is not a matter of great import either way, but this student inclines to the belief that Paul was a widower, his wife having deserted him at the time of his conversion. Moreover, the tradition of Paul's never having been married was most likely fostered by the historic church as a support of their unscriptural doctrine of celibacy for the clergy.

[17] Henry H. Halley, Bible Handbook (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1927), p. 546.

[18] T. Teignmouth Shore, Ellicott's Commentary on the Holy Bible (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1959), p. 307.

[19] F. W. Farrar, op. cit., p. 225.

[20] Ibid.