725. The symbolism of a male and a female as truth and goodness is established by statements made and evidence offered earlier to the effect that a man and a male symbolize truth while a wife and a woman symbolize good. ¹ Male and female are used of what belongs to the intellect, however, whereas man and wife are used of what belongs to the will. This is because a husband and wife represent marriage in a way that male and female do not. Truth acting on its own is completely unable to enter into marriage with goodness — it is possible only for goodness to join with truth — because no truth whatever exists that does not grow out of goodness and so is not coupled with goodness. If you extract goodness from truth, nothing remains but mere words.

Footnotes:

718. The symbolism of man and wife as truth united to goodness is established by the following considerations. A man symbolizes truth, which belongs to the intellect, while a wife symbolizes goodness, which is a matter of will, both of which were treated of earlier. ¹ And a person does not have the smallest particle of thought, the slightest stir of feeling or activity, that does not involve a kind of marriage between intellect and will. Without some kind of marriage, nothing at all is ever produced or comes into existence. The actual organic substances of which we are made, whether taken together or separately, even down to their simplest forms, have in them both a passive and an active nature. If the passive and active did not join together in something that resembles the marriage between a husband and wife, they could not possibly exist in those substances, much less produce anything. This is true throughout the world of nature. ²

These enduring unions trace their origin and source to the heavenly marriage, which stamps every entity in all of creation, animate or inanimate, with a picture of the Lord's kingdom.

Footnotes: