Conjugial Love #156b
156b. 1 THE CONJUNCTION OF SOULS AND MINDS BY MARRIAGE MEANT BY THE LORD'S SAYING THAT THEY ARE NO LONGER TWO BUT ONE FLESH
An inclination and also a capacity for conjunction as though into one was implanted in man and woman from creation, and man and woman still have this inclination and capacity in them. That this is so appears from the book of creation, and at the same time from what the Lord said. In the book of creation, which we call Genesis, we read:
Jehovah God fashioned the rib, which He had taken from the man, into a woman, and He brought her to the man. And the man said, "This one, this time, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman ('ishshah), because she was taken from man ('ish). For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and cling to his wife, and they shall be as one flesh." (Genesis 2:22-24)
The Lord also said something similar in Matthew:
Have you not read that He who made them from the beginning...male and female..., said, "For this reason a man shall leave father and mother and cling to his wife, and the two shall be as one flesh"? Therefore they are no longer two, but one flesh. (Matthew 19:4-6)
[2] It is apparent from these verses that woman was created out of man, and that they each have both an inclination and a capacity for reuniting themselves into one. This means into one person, as is also apparent from the book of creation, where the two together are called "man." For we read:
In the day that God created man..., He created them male and female...and called their name Man.... (Genesis 5:1-2)
We find the reading here, "He called their name Adam," but "Adam" and "man" are the same word in the Hebrew. Moreover, both together are called "man" in Genesis 1:27 and 3:22-24. "One flesh" also means "one person," as is apparent from passages in the Word where the term "all flesh" occurs, meaning "every person" (such as in Genesis 6:12-13,17,19; 2 Isaiah 40:5-6, 49:26, 66:16,23-24; Jeremiah 25:31, 32:27, 45:5; Ezekiel 20:48, 21:4-5; and elsewhere).
[3] But as for the meaning of the rib of the man which was fashioned into a woman, of the flesh which was closed up in its place, and consequently what is meant by "bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh," also what is meant by the father and mother which a man is to leave when he marries, and by his clinging to his wife - this we showed in Arcana Coelestia (The Secrets of Heaven), where we explained the two books, Genesis and Exodus, in their spiritual sense. We established there that a rib does not mean a rib, nor flesh flesh, nor a bone bone, nor cling cling, but that they mean spiritual things, to which they correspond and which they therefore symbolize. They mean the spiritual things which mold one person out of two, and this is evident from the fact that it is conjugial love which joins them together, and this love is spiritual.
We have said several times above that a man's love of wisdom is transferred into his wife, and this will be more fully established in the chapters that follow next. We cannot go off and thus digress now from the subject matter before us here, which is the conjunction of two married partners into one flesh by a union of their souls and minds. This union, however, will be made clear according to the following outline:
1. Each sex has implanted in it from creation a capacity and inclination that gives them the ability and the will to be joined together as though into one.
2. Conjugial love joins two souls and thus two minds into one.
3. A wife's will unites itself with her husband's understanding, and the husband's understanding in consequence unites itself with his wife's will.
4. A desire to unite her husband to her is constant and continual in a wife, but inconstant and intermittent in a husband.
5. A wife inspires the union in her husband according to her love, and a husband receives it according to his wisdom.
6. This union takes place gradually from the first days of marriage, and in people who are in a state of truly conjugial love, it becomes deeper and deeper to eternity.
7. A wife's union with her husband's intellectual wisdom takes place inwardly, but with his moral wisdom outwardly.
8. In order that this union may be achieved, a wife is given a perception of her husband's affections, and also the highest prudence in knowing how to moderate them.
9. Wives keep this perception in them hidden and conceal it from their husbands for reasons that are necessary in building conjugial love, friendship and trust, so that they may have bliss in living together and happiness of life.
10. This perception is a wisdom that the wife has. A man is not capable of it, neither is a wife capable of her husband's intellectual wisdom.
11. A wife from her love continually thinks about her husband's disposition towards her, with a view to joining him to her. This is not true of a husband.
12. A wife joins herself to her husband by appeals to his will's desires.
13. A wife is joined to her husband by the atmosphere of her life emanating from her love.
14. A wife is joined to her husband by her assimilation of the powers of his manhood, though this depends on the spiritual love they have for each other.
15. A wife thus receives into herself an image of her husband, and from it perceives, sees and feels his affections.
16. A husband has duties appropriate to him, and a wife duties appropriate to her, and a wife cannot enter into duties appropriate to her husband or a husband into duties appropriate to his wife and perform them properly.
17. These duties also join the two into one, and at the same time make a single household, depending on the assistance they render each other.
18. According as the aforementioned conjunctions are formed, married partners become more and more one person.
19. Partners who are in a state of truly conjugial love feel themselves to be a united person and as though one flesh.
20. Truly conjugial love regarded in itself is a union of souls, a conjunction of minds, an effort to conjunction in breasts, and a consequent effort to conjunction in body.
21. The states produced by this love are innocence, peace, tranquillity, inmost friendship, complete trust, and a mutual desire in mind and heart to do the other every good; also, as a result of all these, bliss, felicity, delight, pleasure, and, owing to an eternal enjoyment of states like this, the happiness of heaven.
22. These blessings are not at all possible except in a marriage of one man with one wife.
Explanation of these statements now follows.
Footnotes:
1. Section numbers 151-156 were accidentally repeated by Swedenborg. To maintain the proper sequence, they are all included in the first number 156. When they are referred to from other places, they are listed as 151r, 152r, etc. Hyperlinks to them take readers to section 156.
2. "All flesh" in Genesis 6:17,19 seems rather to refer to all animal life.
Genesis 1
1
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
2
Now the earth was formless and empty. Darkness was on the surface of the deep. God's Spirit was hovering over the surface of the waters.
3
God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.
4
God saw the light, and saw that it was good. God divided the light from the darkness.
5
God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." There was evening and there was morning, one day.
6
God said, "Let there be an expanse in the middle of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters."
7
God made the expanse, and divided the waters which were under the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse; and it was so.
8
God called the expanse "sky." There was evening and there was morning, a second day.
9
God said, "Let the waters under the sky be gathered together to one place, and let the dry land appear;" and it was so.
10
God called the dry land "earth," and the gathering together of the waters he called "seas." God saw that it was good.
11
God said, "Let the earth put forth grass, herbs yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit after their kind, with its seed in it, on the earth;" and it was so.
12
The earth brought forth grass, herbs yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit, with its seed in it, after their kind; and God saw that it was good.
13
There was evening and there was morning, a third day.
14
God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of sky to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years;
15
and let them be for lights in the expanse of sky to give light on the earth;" and it was so.
16
God made the two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He also made the stars.
17
God set them in the expanse of sky to give light to the earth,
18
and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. God saw that it was good.
19
There was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.
20
God said, "Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of sky."
21
God created the large sea creatures, and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed, after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind. God saw that it was good.
22
God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth."
23
There was evening and there was morning, a fifth day.
24
God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind, livestock, creeping things, and animals of the earth after their kind;" and it was so.
25
God made the animals of the earth after their kind, and the livestock after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind. God saw that it was good.
26
God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."
27
God created man in his own image. In God's image he created him; male and female he created them.
28
God blessed them. God said to them, "Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth."
29
God said, "Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree, which bears fruit yielding seed. It will be your food.
30
To every animal of the earth, and to every bird of the sky, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food;" and it was so.
31
God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. There was evening and there was morning, a sixth day.
