157. 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. We showed just above from the book of creation that woman was taken out of man. It follows from this that the two sexes have therefore a capacity and inclination to join themselves into one. For whatever is taken from someone carries with it and retains something from his character which forms its character. And because it is of a like character, it yearns for reunion, and when it has been reunited, it exists as though in itself when it exists in the other, and conversely.

It raises no objection to say that each sex has a capacity for conjunction with the other or that they can be united. Nor that they have an inclination to join themselves together. For personal observation and experience attests to both.

A 'void', or 'Vacuity' denotes a person's state before regeneration. From Arcana Coelestia 7: "The first state is the state which precedes, both the state existing from earliest childhood onwards and that existing immediately before regeneration; and it is called a void, emptiness, and thick darkness.

In Genesis 1:2, this signifies lacking good, as with man's state before regeneration. (Arcana Coelestia 17)

In Psalm 89:39, this signifies that the Jewish nation had destroyed its conjunction with the Lord and the church. (The Inner Meaning of the Prophets and Psalms 339)