Among biblical scholars the authorship of this particular passage is heavily disputed. It seems like most people gravitate toward those scholars which affirm their preconceived ideas about women teaching/speaking in church, so I doubt the fact that the authorship is a point of contention resolves the matter for anyone, but it seems to me worth mentioning either way.
On a different note, it is possibly important that none of Paul's other letters to churches give the same directive or really even hint at his stance on the issue one way or the other. That is to say, this doesn't seem to be a matter of great importance to Paul generally, but rather a matter that became important to him specifically in the Corinthian context. So the question I feel I must ask is: Why does Paul suddenly address this issue to this congregation at this point in time? It is clear in chapters 12-14 that Paul feels the need to emphasize that the church gatherings should be orderly. Speaking for myself only, I find this a little odd given that at this point in time (ca. 50-60 AD) the church was still a largely egalitarian (in this case I use egalitarian in the sense of non-hierarchical rather than male/female equality) assembly of believers who met in homes and practiced Spirit-led worship rather than previously determined orders of worship. To put it more directly, the early church seems to have practiced worship that was not "organized", even if not entirely disorderly. So again, why is Paul concerned about orderly worship HERE and "NOW"? In the broader context of 1 Corinthians, I find the most satisfying answer to be that the Corinthian church was experiencing tremendous upheaval because of the presence of warring factions who were seeking to exert their spiritual "superiority". These factions were subverting the real purpose of the gatherings, hence Paul's emphasis on orderly worship and, especially, on the need for the church to function as a unified body of interdependent parts.
If these verses are in fact part of Paul's original letter to the Corinthian ecclesia, then it seems likely that Paul singles out the women as one of the factions that had been seeking to establish their spiritual superiority. This would help to explain why Paul addresses this topic to the Corinthian gathering while he was silent on this issue with all of the other gatherings for which we have his letters. It certainly places these verses solidly within the larger context of 1 Corinthians better than many alternative explanations that I have seen.
