From Swedenborg's Works

 

Conjugial Love #33

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33. It is owing to this original formation that a male is born intellect-oriented and that a female is born will-oriented, or in other words, that a male is born with an affection for knowing, understanding and becoming wise, while a female is born with a love for joining herself to that affection in the male.

Furthermore, because interior qualities form the exterior ones to their likeness, and the masculine form is a form of the intellect while the feminine form is a form of the love of the intellect, therefore the male has a different look, a different sound, and a different physique from the female. Namely, he has a tougher look, a rougher sound, and a stronger physique, and moreover his lower face is bearded. In general, he has a less beautiful form than the female. The two sexes also differ in behavior and manners. In short, nothing in the two sexes is the same, although there is nevertheless a capacity for conjunction in every detail.

Indeed, masculinity in the male is masculine in every part, even in the least part of his body, and also in every idea of his thought, and in every bit of his affection. So, too, with femininity in the female. And because one cannot as a consequence be converted into the other, it follows that after death a male is still male, and that a female is still female.

  
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Many thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Conjugial Love #88

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88. 3. There is good's truth and from this truth's good, or truth resulting from good and good resulting from that truth, and implanted in these two from creation is an inclination to join together into one. It is necessary to form some clear idea of these concepts, because on it depends any recognition of the essential origin of conjugial love. For, as explained below, good's truth or truth resulting from good is masculine, and truth's good or good resulting from that truth is feminine.

This may be more clearly understood, however, if instead of good we say love, and instead of truth, wisdom (that they mean the same thing, see above, no. 84).

Wisdom cannot take form in a person except through a love of growing wise. If this love is removed, a person is completely incapable of becoming wise. Wisdom resulting from this love is what is meant by good's truth or truth resulting from good.

On the other hand, when a person has acquired wisdom for himself as a result of that love, and he loves that wisdom in himself or himself on account of that wisdom, then he forms another love, which is a love of wisdom, and this is meant by truth's good or good resulting from that truth.

[2] There are, in consequence, two loves in a man, one of which is the love of growing wise, which comes first, and the second of which is the love of wisdom, which comes afterwards.

But if this second love continues on in a man, it is an evil love, and is called conceit or love of his own intelligence. It will be established later that to keep this love from destroying man, it was provided from creation that this love be taken from him and transferred into woman, so that it might become conjugial love, which makes him whole again. (Something concerning these two loves and the transfer of the second love into woman may be seen above, nos. 32, 33, and in the Introduction, no. 20.)

If instead of love, therefore, we think good, and instead of wisdom, truth, then it follows from what we have now said that there is good's truth or truth resulting from good, and truth's consequent good or good resulting from that truth.

  
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Many thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.