139. I. THAT THE CHASTE AND THE NON-CHASTE ARE PREDICATED [ONLY] OF MARRIAGES AND OF SUCH THINGS AS BELONG TO MARRIAGES; for, as shown in what follows, love truly conjugial is chastity itself, and the love opposite thereto, which is called scortatory, is unchastity itself. In so far, therefore, as the former love is purified from the latter, so far it is chaste, for so far is its destructive opposite taken away. From this it is evident that it is the purity of conjugial love that is called chastity. Yet there is a conjugial love which is non-chaste and which nevertheless is not unchastity; as, for instance, the love between partners who, for various external reasons, abstain from the effects of lasciviousness so far as not to think of them; nevertheless, if this love has not been purified in their spirits, it still is not chaste. Its form is chaste, but the essence within it, is not chaste.
