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.

3504.'So that my soul may bless you' means allying it to its own life, consequently life that corresponds to the rational. This is clear from the meaning of 'being blessed' as being endowed with celestial and spiritual good, dealt with in 981, 1731, 2846, 3017, 3406. For the good of early childhood and consequently the good of life, which is the same as the good of the natural, and which is represented by 'Esau', is not spiritual good, for the good of early childhood is devoid of knowledge and intelligence, and so of wisdom. The good of early childhood becomes spiritual good through the implantation of truth, and so through regeneration, see 1616, 1802, 2280, 2290, 2291, 2299, 2304, 2305, 2307, 3494 (end). This is how the correspondence between rational things and natural is effected, and so how the allying of the natural man to the life of the rational is effected. This allying to its own life is what is meant by 'my soul may bless you'.