DE CONJUGIO

ON MARRIAGE I

I. A human being, both male and female, is born to be an image and a likeness of God,1-5.

From the Word,1.

The image of God is love and wisdom, and the likeness of God is the form of each, which is the human form or a human being,2-4.

All parts of the body, which are to be enumerated, and all parts of the mind together make up the human form, and nothing must be lacking from them; they are the form of love and wisdom,2.

In order that there may be a form of love and wisdom nothing must be lacking,3 and God is in that form, because he is Divine Love and Wisdom,4.

A person's will is an organ for the reception of love and everything connected with it, and his understanding is an organ for the reception of wisdom and everything connected with it,5.

II. Woman is created to be an image of love, and man is created to be an image of wisdom,6-13

Every individual is an image of both love and wisdom, but is as he or she is as the result of the predominance [of one characteristic],6.

Love and wisdom, good and truth, affection and thought, and will and understanding are all the same,7.

Such is the difference between woman and man,8.

This is unknown in the world; why;9.

Woman is described as being an image of love or affection for good,10.

Man is described as being an image of wisdom or understanding of truth,11.

A confirmation from experience in a street where there were boys and girls,12.that it is so.

III. The marriage of love and wisdom, that is, good and truth is the actual origin of marriage between man and wife, that is, in an and woman,14.

It is called a marriage of good and truth from which marriages proceed, because good and truth are very general words,14.

They are called husband and wife, and man and woman, because by husband and wife is meant the wisdom of love and the love of wisdom; and by man is meant the truth of good, by woman the good of truth.

5. Truly conjugial love is chastity itself

Celibacy in the heavens is not called chastity, nor is a young girl described as chaste, nor an unmarried woman, nor a virgin. But chaste is applied to a wife who loathes adultery. In the same way a husband who loathes adultery. For in heaven truly conjugial love is what is called chastity.

9. On those whose aim in marriage is lasciviousness such as exists in adultery

I saw some women in a sort of kitchen, which contained a dark chimney without a fire in the hearth, with butcher's knives in their hands, with which they seemed to want to murder babies. They were deceitful, sly and malicious, all prostitutes, secretly alluring men from all sides. When they were inspected by angels they appeared like two globes full of intestines; one was foully bloody, the other was an ugly yellow. This was the representation of their lusts when inspected by angels. They were all the sort of women who enter into matrimony only for the sake of committing adultery with others, because then they are not afraid of losing their reputations by having an illegitimate child, which they attribute to the husband. Their lot is very hard; everything there is filthy; they live in caves, and are afraid of being seen on account of their ugliness and deformity; nor can they any longer entice any adulterer, because they are ugly and have a fetid stench. Men, however, whose aim in marriage was adultery, and who subsequently lived with adulteresses, form such a distaste for their wives that they run away from them. They eventually become impotent and their thought and speech become lifeless in the company of wives, and each one especially in the company of his own wife.