A chiasm is a literary structure where vocabulary of the first section of a passage is repeated in reverse order in the second. The center of the chiasm is typically the climax of the passage. In the center is that husbands should not seek to be released from their wives and those who have been released from a wife should not seek another wife.AAre you bound to a wife? BDo not seek to be released.1 B’Are you released1 from a wife? A’Do not seek a wife.1 The Greek word luō, translated “released” is found throughout the papyrias as a technical term for discharging someone from the obligations of a contract” (Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians [The New International Commentatary on the New Testament; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,1987], 331-32).