A better question - or at least a prior one - is the one that arises within the text itself: what does a weak vessel signify?

ἀσθενεστέρῳ σκεύει

This is a jar or a container, not a wrestler or Homeric hero. So that's marked language that must be accounted for. And accounting for Peter's marked language is the first step, before starting trying to put what he says into a history-of-ideas.

A σκεῦος is a jar, pot or container. In the NT it becomes a key word because of Christ's kenosis being a 'pouring-out'.

So the weakness conveyed by this ἀσθενεστέρῳ might refer to something like how resilient the sides of the pot are, or to the strength-or-dilution of the contents.

And if so, this might not just be saying women are weaker in the wrestling and opening stubborn jars stakes: they might also be fragile and the souls inside them might be all watery and insipid.

Which ends up with what looks like a simple word needing a word study. And probably quite a long one since σθένος is a 'basic' concept word with loads of cognates. Just ἀσθενής has 26 examples in the NT, and the LXX will have more.

Starting with big Liddell & Scott (1897), for ἀσθενής, in the hopes it can quickly narrow down the scope and save doing a full survey. The lexicographer thinks it has these senses:-

Without strength...

1. in body: feeble / sickly / weakly

2. in mind

3. in power

4. in property

5. insignificant

Straight away, weak is us glossing for "without strength." That's to be remembered since strength might be a moral quality and therefore its absence a 'privatio boni'.

And so far it's not looking great for Saint Peter in the diversity-equity stakes. But that just means the study must proceed carefully and respectfully.

What's next is to look for the examples that have been applied to objects and not animals or people - or abstract things like arguments and tactics.

Probably those are going to be in L&S sense 4. And it's interesting how L&S treat that one - because it might end up meaning cheap and nasty or ricketty when applied to something like a pot or jar or container. Beware Peter the Maenads are sharpening their knitting needles!

Perseus Project have about 1500 extant examples in the corpus: so we're in with a chance, but this could take a while or need a team. https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=a%29sqenh%2Fs&la=greek&can=a%29sqenh%2Fs0&prior=a)sqene/w

There's this in Plutarch's faces of the moon:-

" ἣλιος ὀξυβελὴς ἠδ᾽ ἱλάειρα σελήνη;

τὸ ἐπαγωγὸν αὐτῆς καὶ ἱλαρὸν καὶ ἄλυπον οὕτω προσαγορεύσας: ἔπειτα λόγον ἀποδιδούς, καθ᾽ ὃν αἱ ἀμυδραὶ καὶ ἀσθενεῖς ὄψεις οὐδεμίαν διαφορὰν ἐν τῇ σελήνῃ μορφῆς ἐνορῶσιν"

The sharp-rayed sun, and gently shining moon.

For thus does he call her alluring, favorable, and harmless light. No less absurd appears the reason he afterwards gives why dull and weak eyes discern no difference of form in the moon

Athenaeus' The Deipnosophists has it of weak wine:-

ὁ δὲ λευκὸς οἶνος ἀσθενὴς καὶ λεπτός, ὁ δὲ κιρρὸς πέττει ῥᾷον ξηραντικὸς ὤν.

But white wine is weak and thin; but yellow wine is very digestible, being of a more drying nature.

Plutarch's contradictions of the Stoics has some weak vines:-

καίτοι γ᾽ ὁ μὲν ἀμπελουργὸς ἔτι μικρῶν ὄντων καὶ ἀσθενῶν τοῦτο ποιεῖ τῶν κλημάτων, καὶ ἡμεῖς νεογνῶν καὶ τυφλῶν ὄντων τῶν σκυλακίων ὑφαιροῦμεν τὰ πολλὰ φειδόμενοι τῆς κυνός.

And yet the vine-dresser does this, the sprigs being slender and weak; and we, to favor a bitch, take from her many of her new born puppies, whilst they are yet blind

As a straw poll, that's enough for us to read ἀσθενεστέρῳ σκεύει as "the weak container" in the sense of the container of poor sort. The deficient container. It is a container that isn't up to much. If its function was seeing, it would see dimly, if its function was to taste sweet, it wouldn't be palatable, if its function was to grow grapes, it wouldn't grow many.

Anything about the relative physical strength of men and women is barking up the wrong tree. If it was about that, or about sickliness then the jar metaphor wouldn't be needed. The jar comes in to qualify the type of weakness Paul wants to warn about.

In the context, this is the jar that you have to handle carefully because its delicate. This is a nurturing context not a critical one.

ἀπονέμοντες is then to treat the pot "from the rule" i.e. with due care. Which gets me to a reading (ESV with my edits):-

Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, treating the woman with due care like a delicate vase, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.

[humour] there you go Pete bruv - that should get you off the hook [/humour]