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.

761. It has been stated already that spiritual temptation when it takes place in someone is a conflict between the evil spirits and the angels residing with that person, and that he ordinarily feels that conflict in his conscience. As regards such conflict it should be recognized in addition that the angels are protecting man constantly and are warding off the evils that evil spirits direct against him. They protect even the falsities and the evils with a person, for they are fully aware of where the person's falsities and evils come from - from evil spirits and genii. Man in no sense produces any falsity and evil from himself. Instead it is the evil spirits residing with him who produce them, and as they do so they also convince him that these originate in himself. Such is the nature of their wickedness. And what is more, the moment they instill this into him and convince him, they also accuse and condemn him. This I can confirm from a multitude of experiences. Anyone who has no faith in the Lord is incapable of being enlightened in the matter; he inevitably believes that an evil is from himself. Consequently he makes the evil his own and becomes like those evil spirits residing with him. Such is the situation with man. And as the angels are aware of it they protect even a person's falsities and evils while he is undergoing the temptations that are part of regeneration. Otherwise he would go under, for with man there is nothing but evil and derivative falsity, so that he is just a heap and conglomeration of evils and derivative falsities.