Man and wife accepted by god (4)
I believe the answer is:
pawn
'man' is the definition.
(pawn is a kind of man)
'wife accepted by god' is the wordplay.
'wife' becomes 'w'.
'accepted by' is an insertion indicator.
'god' becomes 'pan' (Pan is an example**).
'w' put within 'pan' is 'PAWN'.
'and' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for pawn that I've seen before include "Insignificant player" , "Chesspiece" , "a future queen, possibly" , "Chess piece -- puppet" , "Person one used" .)