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.

ON MARRIAGE II

On the representation of conjugial love by the most beautiful objects.

Truly conjugial love is represented in heaven by various means. It is represented by diamond auras, glistening as if with rubies and garnets, also by the most beautiful rainbows and showers of gold, the sight of which fills by-standers with such pleasure and delight that their minds are stirred to their depths. I have heard the angels in the gardens of heaven when conjugial love was so represented, and they said that they were filled with such delight that they could not express it otherwise than by saying it was delight itself, from which all other delights sprang as from their origin. They said that this was pure mental delight, without any arousing of lust. For such is conjugial love in origin.