Conjugial Love (Acton) n. 37

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37. IV. THAT ESPECIALLY DOES LOVE OF THE SEX REMAIN, AND WITH THOSE WHO COME INTO HEAVEN, BEING THOSE WHO BECOME SPIRITUAL ON EARTH, CONJUGIAL LOVE. The reason why love of the sex remains with man after death is because the male is then a male, and the female a female; and the masculine in the male is masculine in the whole and in every part of him, likewise the feminine in the female; and the conjunctive is present in their single parts, yea, in their most single. Now because this conjunctive was implanted in them from creation and thence is within them perpetually, it follows that the one desires and yearns for conjunction with the other. Regarded in itself, love is nothing but a desire and thence a striving for conjunction, and conjugial love for conjunction into a one; for the male man and the female man were so created that from two they may become as one man or one flesh; and when they become one, then, taken together, they are man in his fullness. Without this conjunction they are two, and each, as it were, is a divided or half man. Now since the conjunctive is inmostly latent in the single parts of the male, and in the single parts of the female; and since the faculty and desire for conjunction into a one lies within their single parts; it follows that the mutual and reciprocal love of the sex remains with men after death.


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