491. The same things are signified by “sons” and “daughters” in this chapter (verses 4, 7, 10, 13, 16, 19, 26, 30), but such as is the church, such are the “sons and daughters” that is, such are the goods and truths; the truths and goods here spoken of are such as were distinctly perceived, because they are predicated of the Most Ancient Church, the principal and parent of all the other and succeeding churches.

5570. Many spirits exist, especially female ones, who have imagined that having an attractive appearance was all that mattered and who have thought about nothing deeper than this. They have given scarcely any thought to eternal life. This is excusable in females up to the time of young womanhood, when the burning desire which usually comes before marriage has died down. But if, when they become more mature adults and are able to understand something better, they continue in those ways, they acquire a character that remains with them after death. Such women are seen in the next life, possessing long hair which falls over their faces and which, in their imagination that such makes them elegant, they are also combing. (For 'combing one's hair' means making natural things look attractive, 5247.) From this other spirits recognize what those women are like; for spirits can know from their hair - from its colour, length, arrangement - what those women have been like so far as their natural life in the world is concerned.