209. UNIVERSALS CONCERNING MARRIAGES
There are many things about marriages which, if treated of in detail, would swell this small work into a large volume; for it might treat in detail of similitude and dissimilitude in married partners; of the elevation of natural conjugial love into spiritual conjugial love and of their conjunction; of the increments of the one and the decrements of the other; of the varieties and diversities of each; of the intelligence of wives; of the universal conjugial sphere from heaven and of its opposite from hell; of their influx and reception,* besides much else which, if set forth in detail, would swell this work into a book so bulky as to tire the reader. For this reason and to avoid empty prolixity, these subjects are condensed into Universals concerning Marriages, and these, like the preceding subjects, shall be distributed into articles, as follows:
I. That the sense proper to conjugial love is the sense of touch.
II. That with those who are in love truly conjugial, the faculty of becoming wise increases, but with those who are not in conjugial love it decreases.
III. That with those who are in love truly conjugial, the happiness of cohabitation increases, but with those who are not in conjugial love it decreases.
IV. That with those who are in love truly conjugial, conjunction of minds and therewith friendship increases, but with those who are not in conjugial love, the latter together with the former decreases.
V. That those who are in love truly conjugial continually will to be one man, but those who are not in conjugial love will to be two.
VI. That those who are in love truly conjugial look to what is eternal in marriage; not so those who are not in conjugial love.
VII. That conjugial love resides with chaste wives, yet their love depends on their husbands.
VIII. That wives love the bonds of marriage if only the men love those bonds.
IX. That in itself the intelligence of women is modest, elegant, pacific, yielding, gentle, tender; and the intelligence of men in itself is grave, harsh, hard, spirited, fond of license.
X. That wives are in no excitation as men are, but that with them there is a state of preparation for reception.
XI. That men have abundance according to their love of propagating the truths of their wisdom, and according to their love of performing uses.
XII. That determinations are at the good pleasure of the husband.
XIII. That there is a conjugial sphere which inflows from the Lord through heaven into every single thing of the universe even to its ultimates.
XIV. That this sphere is received by the female sex, and through this sex is transferred into the male sex, and not the reverse.
XV. That where there is love truly conjugial, this sphere is received by the wife and by the husband solely through the wife.
XVI. That where there is no conjugial love, this sphere is indeed received by the wife but not by the husband through her.
XVII. That love truly conjugial may exist with one of the partners and not at the same time with the other.
XVIII. That with married partners there are various similitudes and various dissimilitudes, both internal and external.
XIX. That various similitudes can be conjoined, but not with dissimilitudes.
XX. That for those who desire love truly conjugial, the Lord provides similitudes; and if not given on earth, He provides them in the heavens.
XXI. That according to the defect and loss of conjugial love, man approaches to the nature of a beast.
Now follows the explanation of these articles.
* In the Author's ANGELIC WISDOM CONCERNING MARRIAGE, of which only the Index is extant, each of these subjects formed a separate chapter.
