46. On the plurality of wives among Mohammedans

I spoke with Mohammedans about spiritual marriage, saying that it is a marriage of good and truth; that good loves truth and truth good like a married couple; and that these wish to be joined and bring forth goods and truths like daughters and sons, and as it were to procreate families. They understood this well, as also that conjugial love comes down from that spiritual origin, and that everything spiritual in man undergoes a change, so that it is scarcely recognisable, when it comes down to the natural; it can only be recognised by correspondences. From these facts it is plain that they, having several wives allowed by their religion, cannot have truly conjugial love. It was said that they are allowed several wives, that is, polygamy is permitted, because they live in hot climates and therefore are more heated with lust than those who live in cold climates. ¹ Therefore if they were not permitted polygamy, more of them would rush into adultery than would Europeans, and thus act contrary to their religious tenets; and to act contrary to one's religious tenets is to profane what is sacred. It was shown further that all their love of marriage is lascivious, and so not spiritual; nor can it become spiritual unless they acknowledge the Lord.

Footnotes:

1162. That 'the sons of Ham' means things that belong to separated faith follows from what appears above. To know what 'Ham' means and from that 'the sons of Ham', one must know what faith separated from charity is. Faith separated from charity is no faith. And where there is no faith there is no worship, neither internal nor external. If any worship does exist it is corrupted worship, and this is why 'Ham' likewise means corrupted internal worship. The individual belief is false in people who apply the term 'faith' to a mere knowledge of celestial and spiritual things separated from charity. For sometimes the most evil people of all - such as those who have led lives continually hating, getting revenge, and committing adultery, and who are therefore like those in hell and after life in the body become devils - are more knowledgeable than others. From this it becomes clear that knowledge is not faith. Rather, faith is the acknowledgement of the things that belong to faith; and that acknowledgement is in no way external but internal, being the operation of the Lord alone through the charity present with a person. Nor is acknowledgement in any way of the lips but of the life. It is from a person's life that the nature of his acknowledgement may be known. All who have a knowledge of the cognitions of faith but have no charity are called 'the sons of Ham'. Whether their knowledge is a knowledge of the interior cognitions of the Word and its deepest mysteries, or a knowledge of all that the literal sense of the Word contains, or a knowledge of other truths, from which these may be regarded, no matter what name they are given, or whether it is a knowledge of all the rituals that constitute external worship, they are 'sons of Ham' if they have no charity. That those called 'the sons of Ham' are such is clear from the nations now under discussion.