Conjugial Love (Acton) n. 250

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250. XIV. THAT OF THE EXTERNAL CAUSES OF COLD, THE FIFTH IS INEQUALITY OF STATION AND CONDITION IN EXTERNALS. There are many inequalities of station and condition which, during the time of living together, break up the conjugial love initiated before the nuptials. All, however, can be referred to inequalities in respect to age, to rank, and to wealth. That unequal ages induce cold in marriages, as in the marriage of a boy with an old woman, or of an adolescent maid with a decrepit old man, needs no confirmation. That in marriages it is the same in the case of inequality of rank, as in the marriage of a prince with a maid-servant, or of an illustrious matron with a man-servant, is also acknowledged without confirmation. That it is equally the case with respect to wealth is clear, unless, indeed, a similitude in animus and manners and the application of the one partner to the inclinations and native desires of the other consociates them. In these cases, however, compliance by the one on account of the superior station and condition of the other conjoins them only in a servile way, and such conjunction is a cold conjunction; for with them it is a marriage,* not of the spirit and heart, but only of the mouth and the name--a marriage of which the inferior boasts and at which the superior blushes with shame. In the heavens there is no inequality of age or of rank or wealth. As to age, all there are in the bloom of youth and remain therein to eternity. As to rank, all there regard others according to the uses which they perform. The more eminent look upon those in lower stations as brethren; nor do they put rank above the excellence of the use but the latter above the former. Moreover, when virgins are given in marriage, they do not know of what lineage they are, for no one there knows his father on earth, the Lord being the Father of all. So likewise as to wealth. There, wealth is the endowment of being wise; according to this, riches are given them in sufficiency. As to how marriages are entered into there, this may be seen above (no. 229). * The Latin is conjugiale (the conjugial), but the context indicates that this is a misprint for conjugium as in the translation.


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