In Romans 7's marriage illustration, what determines how a married couple treats property and other legal matters?
The law of the land under which the couple was married determines how they treat community property and handle other legal matters. It is that civil law, not merely the husband's dominion, that lays out how property and wealth are managed, and death frees the wife from its demands.
Les explains that in Romans 7's marriage illustration, the determining factor is not the husband's dominion over the wife as such, but the law of the land under which they were married. That civil law governs how they treat community property and how they do all these other things under the law of the land. It is the law of the land that made them husband and wife, and it stipulates how property and wealth are handled, whether they like it or not. When the husband dies, death settles it: the woman is as free as a bird, no longer under the previous demands of that husband or that civil law. She is free from the law that kept those two people together, so she is not an adulteress though she be married to another man.