Conjugial Love (Acton) n. 247

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247. XI. THAT OF THE EXTERNAL CAUSES OF COLD, THE SECOND IS THE BELIEVING THAT CONJUGIAL LOVE IS ONE WITH SCORTATORY LOVE EXCEPT THAT BY LAW, THE LATTER IS ILLICIT AND THE FORMER IS NOT. That from this comes cold is clearly seen by reason when it considers that scortatory love is diametrically opposed to conjugial love. Therefore, when conjugial love is believed to be one with scortatory love, then, in idea the two loves become alike, and the wife is looked upon as a harlot and marriage as uncleanness. Then also the man is an adulterer, if not in body yet in spirit. That from this source flow contempt, loathing and aversion between the man and his woman, and thus intense cold, follows as an inevitable conclusion; for nothing stores up conjugial cold within itself more than scortatory love. Moreover, because this love passes off into cold, it may not undeservedly be called conjugial cold itself.


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