476. That 'male and female' means the marriage of faith and love has been stated and shown already. That is to say, 'male' or man (vir) means the understanding and what belongs to the understanding, and so what belongs to faith, while 'female' means the will, or what belongs to the will, and so what belongs to love. This also is why she was called Eve, from a word meaning life, which belongs to love alone. 'Female' therefore also means the Church, as also shown already, and 'male' the man (vir) of the Church. At present the subject is the state of the Church at the time it was spiritual and shortly to become celestial, which is why the word 'male' comes first, as it does also in 1:26-27. Furthermore the expression 'to create' has regard to the spiritual man. As soon however as that marriage has taken place, that is, the Church has become celestial, it is no longer called 'male and female' but 'Man' (Homo) who by virtue of the marriage means both. Consequently 'and He called their name Man', which means the Church, follows next.

917. 'According to their families' means pairs. This is clear from what has been stated already in Chapter 7:2, 3, 15, about them going into the ark 'seven by seven of the clean, and two by two of the unclean', whereas in the present verse it is said that they went out 'according to families'. The reason no reference is made to seven by seven of the clean and two by two of the unclean but to 'families' is that the Lord has now brought all things into such order that they represent families. With a regenerate person goods and truths, that is, the things of charity and those of faith deriving from it, interrelate like blood relatives and relatives through marriage, and so they are like families descended from a single stock or parent, in the way they are in heaven, 685. This is the order which the Lord brings to goods and truths. The express meaning in the present verse is that every single good looks upon its own truth as one joined to it in marriage. And just as in general charity looks to faith, so in every individual part good looks to truth. For unless the general whole is the product of the individual part there is no general whole. It is from the individual parts that the general comes into being, and it is by virtue of that that it is called the general. With every person the situation is as follows: As is the person in general so are the most individual details of his affections and ideas. These are what he is composed of or what make him what he is in general. People therefore who have been regenerated become in the most individual details of their person what they are in general character.