Good topic to bring up Ian!
We know that the Word points to Christ and Christ points to us.... everything that happens in the Word is for our admonition. To train us and chastise us, grace us into the kingdom!
To deny our wives is a type of denying our love of Christ and His word.
Eph 5:25 Husbands, love your wives,
even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
Eph 5:26 That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,
Eph 5:27 That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.
Eph 5:28 So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies.
He that loveth his wife loveth himself. Mat 10:39 He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.
Christ is the Word! We loose our lives for the sake of the Word! But when we lie and say that "she's not my wife" we distance ourselves from the Word to try and save our own skin.
Mat 13:21 Yet hath he not root in himself, but dureth for a while: for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended.
I think those guys are a type of us when we deny Christ. When we are confronted with persecution, we get offended and lie so we can "fit in" instead of stand up for God's Truth. It's because, like them, we are afraid to die.
To deny our wife is an example of denying God's Word in our lives so that we can fit in with babylon.
The many called, but few chosen.
Mat 26:75 And Peter remembered the word of Jesus, which said unto him, Before the cock crow,
thou shalt deny me thrice. And he went out, and wept bitterly
Christ denied 3 times by Peter. Three instances of denying their wives in Genesis. Things that make you go Hmmmmmmm. Yeah, I think it's basically lying about our wives and not standing on God's Word just so we can be accepted into their city.