In general, men are driven by intellect and women by affections, and because of this men in the Bible generally represent knowledge and truth and women generally represent love and the desire for good. This generally carries over into marriage, where the man's growing knowledge and understanding and the woman's desire to be good and useful are a powerful combination. In many cases in the Bible, then, "husband" refers to things of truth and understanding, much as "man" does. Magnificent things can happen in a true marriage, though, when both partners are looking to the Lord. If a husband opens his heart to his wife, it's as though she can implant her loves inside him, transforming his intellectual urges into a love of growing wise. She in turn can grow in her love of that blooming wisdom, and use it for joy in their married life and in their caring for children and others in their life. Many couples, even in heaven, stay in that state -- called "Spiritual" -- growing deeper and deeper to eternity. There is the potential, though, for the couple to be transformed: through the nurturing love of his wife the husband can pass from a love of growing wise to an actual love of wisdom itself, and the wife can be transformed from the love of her husband's wisdom into the wisdom of that love -- the actual expression of the love of the Lord they have built together. In that state -- called "Celestial" -- the husband represents love and the desire for good, and the wife represents truth and knowledge.

5355. 'For God has made me fruitful' means leading to a multiplication of truth from good. This is clear from the meaning of 'making fruitful' as a multiplication, that is to say, of truth from good, for fruitfulness is used in reference to good and multiplication to truth, 43, 55, 913, 983, 1940, 2846, 2847. In the original language the name Ephraim is derived from a word meaning fruitfulness, the essential nature of which is contained in the statement 'for God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction'. That essential nature is one in which truth from good in the natural has been multiplied after the temptations undergone there have come to an end. But a brief description of what a multiplication of truth from good is must be given. When good, that is, love towards the neighbour, is present in a person, so also is the love of truth. Consequently, insofar as that good is present he feels an affection for truth, since good exists within truth like the soul within its body.

[2] In the measure therefore that good multiplies truth it reproduces itself; and if it is the good of genuine charity it reproduces itself endlessly within truth and through truth. For there is no limit either to good or to truth; the Infinite is present within every single form of truth or good because each one has its origin in the Infinite. Yet that endless quality cannot ever match up to the Infinite itself, for what is limited or finite cannot be compared with the Infinite. In the Church at the present day scarcely any multiplication of truth takes place. The reason for this is that at the present day the good of genuine charity is non-existent. The Church believes that it is enough if a person knows simply the tenets of the Church within which he is born and in various ways firmly assents to these. But one with whom the good of genuine charity exists and who consequently feels an affection for truth is not content with that but wishes to clarify from the Word what the truth is and to see it before firmly assenting to it. Also, it is good that enables him to see it, for the discernment of truth originates in good, the Lord being within that good and imparting such discernment. When the person receives truth from Him he increases it to an unlimited extent. This may be likened to a tiny seed which grows into a tree and produces more tiny seeds, which then grow into a garden, and so on beyond that.