Father gives wife a hand (3)
I believe the answer is:
paw
'a hand' is the definition.
(I know that hand can be written as paw)
'father gives wife' is the wordplay.
I cannot really see how this works, but
'father' could be 'pa' (pa can mean dad or father) and 'pa' is located in the answer.
'wife' could be 'w' (abbreviation) and 'w' is present in the answer.
This accounts for all the letters.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for paw that I've seen before include "Animal's foot" , "Foot of clawed animal" , "Cat's foot" , "Animal foot or hill-billy dad" , "Eg, a dog's foot" .)