Conjugial Love (Acton) n. 192

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192. VII. THAT MARRIAGES ALSO INDUCE NEW FORMS UPON THE SOULS AND MINDS [OF THE PARTNERS]. That marriages induce new forms upon souls and minds cannot be observed in the natural world because there, souls and minds are encompassed with a material body, and the mind rarely shows itself. Moreover, the men of this age, more than the ancients, learn from infancy to put expressions on their face whereby they deeply conceal the affections of their mind. This is the reason why the forms of the mind as they are before marriage and as they are after marriage are not distinguished the one from the other. Yet that the forms of souls and minds are different after marriage from what they had been before, is manifestly apparent from these same minds in the spiritual world; for then they are spirits and angels, and these are no other than minds and souls in human form, stripped of the coverings which were composed of elements found in waters or earths, and of exhalations diffused therefrom. When these are cast off, the forms of men's minds are seen, such as they had been inwardly in their bodies, and then it is clearly seen that they are of one kind with those who are living in marriage, and of another with those who are not. In general, married partners have an interior comeliness of face, the man taking from his wife the charming glow of her love, and the wife from the man the luster of his wisdom; for there, two partners are united as to their souls, and a human fullness is apparent in each. This is in heaven, for nowhere else are there marriages. Below heaven are only connubial ties which are made and broken.


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