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.

6765. 'And he said to the one in the wrong, Why are you striking your companion?' means a rebuke, deploring that one person should wish to destroy another's faith. This is clear from the meaning of 'the one in the wrong' as a person who does not uphold the truth of faith and yet is within the Church (for within the Church there are those who uphold the truth of faith and there are those who do not, as the existence of various heresies goes to prove; and those who subscribe to heresy, that is, who do not uphold the truth of faith, are meant here by 'the one in the wrong'); from the meaning of 'striking' as destroying, as above in 6758; and from the meaning of 'companion' as a person who upholds the truth of faith. For when 'the one in the wrong' means a person who does not uphold the truth of faith, 'companion' means one who does uphold it. The word 'companion' is used, not 'brother', even though both of them were Hebrews, because they were hostile to each other. The fact that this is a rebuke is self-evident. What all this implies is that when a person is being regenerated he is sent into battles against falsities. During these the Lord maintains him in truth, but in what he has convinced himself to be the truth; and this is what is used in the battles against falsity. Even that which is not the real truth can be used, provided that it is such as can in some way be joined to good. And it is joined to good through innocence, for innocence is the means which enables that conjunction to be effected. This explains why people within the Church who have accepted any teaching whatever can be regenerated, though those who are in possession of real truths are in a better position than others.