The relationship between men and women is deep and nuanced, and one entire book of the Writings -- Conjugial Love -- is devoted to the subject. So we can hardly offer a full explanation here. In a very general sense, though, the Writings say that men are creatures of intellect, driven by the love of growing wise; women, meanwhile are creations of affection, driven by the love of wisdom and the good that wisdom can do. They are formed this way to reflect the Lord's Divine Love and Divine Wisdom, and so that they can form marriages that reflect the unity of Divine Love and Divine Wisdom. Marking differences between men and women can be a touchy thing, but realistically it's easy to see that men tend to love acquiring knowledge whether it has any practical application or not. Many of them can spout out sports statistics or hold court on the workings of the internal combustion engine, even though it is knowledge they are not likely to ever use. They find such knowledge interesting for its own sake. It follows, then, that when the Bible speaks of men, the men represent facts, ideas, knowledge, truth, intellect and wisdom -- or in the negative sense falsity, twisted logic, and reasoning that is devoid of concern for others.

1499. That 'Pharaoh gave his men orders concerning him, tend they sent him away]' means that facts went away from the Lord is clear from the meaning of 'Pharaoh' as knowledge, and also from the meaning of 'men' as things belonging to the understanding, as shown already in 158. Because the men referred to here are said to belong to 'Pharaoh', or knowledge, they mean such things of the understanding supporting such knowledge. The implication of facts going away from the Lord is as follows: When celestial things are being joined to intellectual truths and these truths are becoming celestial, all things that are empty disperse by themselves. This is how it is with that which is celestial.