457. 12. For the conjugial union of one man with one wife is the precious jewel of human life and the repository of Christian religion. These two points are ones we have already demonstrated universally and singly in the entire preceding part on conjugial love and the delights of its wisdom.

Conjugial love is the precious jewel of human life because the character of a person's life is such as the character of that love in him, that love forming the inmost element of his life. For it is the life of wisdom dwelling together with its love, and of love dwelling together with its wisdom, and thus it is the life of the delights of both. In a word, a person is a living soul as a result of that love. That is why we call the conjugial union of one man with one wife the precious jewel of human life.

[2] This conclusion is supported by observations made above: that truly conjugial friendship, trust and potency are possible with only one wife, because only then is there a union of minds (nos. 333, 334); that in and from that union spring the celestial blessings, spiritual felicities and natural delights which from the beginning have been provided for people who are in a state of truly conjugial love (no. 335); that this love is the fundamental love of all celestial, spiritual, and consequently natural loves (nos. 65-67); and that into this love have been gathered all joys and all delights, from the first to the last of them (nos. 68, 69). Moreover, in Delights of Wisdom Relating to Conjugial Love, which forms Part One of this work, it was fully shown that regarded in its origin, this love is the interplay of wisdom and love.

531. 6. Thus is conjugial love imputed to a person. There are marriages in which conjugial love is not apparent and yet exists, and there are marriages in which conjugial love appears to exist and yet does not. The reasons in both cases are many, recognizable in part from our discussions of truly conjugial love (nos. 57-73), of the reasons for cold states and separation (nos. 234-260), and of the reasons for apparent love and friendship in marriage (nos. 271-292). But appearances in outward manifestations determine nothing in regard to imputation. The only determining factor is the conjugial disposition that is lodged and harbored in a person's will, in whatever state of marriage the person lives. This conjugial disposition is like the tongue of a balance by which that love is weighed; for the conjugial union of one man with one wife is the precious jewel of human life and the repository of Christian religion, as we showed above in nos. 457, 458.

This being the case, it is possible for conjugial love to exist in one partner and not at the same time in the other. It is possible as well for that love to lie so deeply hidden that the person himself has no awareness of it. And it may also be implanted during the course of one's life. The reason is that conjugial love in its progress accompanies religion; and because religion is the marriage of the Lord and the church, religion is what initiates and infuses that love. Consequently conjugial love is imputed to a person after death in accordance with his spiritual rational life. Moreover, for one to whom that love is imputed, a marriage is, after his passing, provided in heaven, whatever the character of any marriage he may have had in the world.

From this now proceeds the following conclusion, that one ought not to take the appearances in marriages or the appearances in acts of licentiousness and infer from them of someone that he has conjugial love or not. Therefore, Judge not, that you be not condemned. (Matthew 7:1)