173. 15. A wife thus receives into herself an image of her husband, and from it perceives, sees and feels his affections. From the arguments presented above, it follows, as something already attested, that wives receive into themselves matters that have to do with the wisdom of their husbands, thus matters belonging to their souls and minds, and in this way, from being maidens, they turn themselves into wives. These are the arguments from which this follows:
1. Woman was created out of man.
2. Consequently, she has an inclination to unite and, so to speak, reunite herself with a man.
3. On account of and for the sake of that union with her mate, a woman is born a form of love for a man, and she becomes more and more a form of love for him by marriage, because her love then continually devotes its thoughts to joining her husband to her.
4. She is joined to her particular partner by appeals to his life's desires.
5. Married partners are joined together by the atmospheres surrounding them, which unite them overall and in every instance according to the nature of the conjugial love in the wives, and at the same time according to the nature of the wisdom receiving that love in the husbands.
6. Married partners are also joined together by assimilations of the husbands' powers by the wives.
7. From this it is apparent that something of the husband is constantly being transfused into the wife and infused in her as though it were hers.
It follows from all this that an image of the husband is formed in the wife, and that because of this image a wife perceives, sees and feels in herself the things that are in her husband, and herself therefore as being in him. She perceives from their communication; she sees from looking at him; and she feels from touching him. She feels the reception of her love by her husband from the touch of her hands upon his cheeks, arms, hands and breast - something that was revealed to me by the three wives in the hall, and by seven wives in a rose garden, spoken of in the narrative accounts. 1
Note a piè di pagina:
