Take in husband evicted in period of arousal (3)
I believe the answer is:
eat
'take in' is the definition.
(to eat is to take in food)
'husband evicted in period of arousal' is the wordplay.
'husband' becomes 'h' (abbreviation).
'evicted in' suggests deleting specific letters.
'period of arousal' becomes 'heat' (as in an animal being in heat).
'heat' with 'h' taken out is 'EAT'.
(Other definitions for eat that I've seen before include "Worry" , "Do cats - bats? Do bats - cats? (Alice in Wonderland)" , "put away" , "get stuck in" , "Take food" .)