While for many the mention of Romans 7 calls immediately to mind the problem of the identity of the ἐγώ in w. 7–25, one could argue that Paul's marriage analogy at the outset of the chapter, though receiving less scholarly attention, has proved to be equally perplexing for interpreters of Romans. Stephen Westerholm indicates the complexity of this passage in his comment that Paul's picture ‘is not the most perspicuous in the literature’, while John A. T. Robinson speaks for many in asserting that the details of the analogy are ‘the more difficult the more you inspect them’.p