Conjugial Love (Acton) n. 475

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475. XI. THAT THOSE WHO ARE IN THIS CONCUBINAGE FROM CAUSES LEGITIMATE, JUST, AND REALLY WEIGHTY, MAY AT THE SAME TIME BE IN CONJUGIAL LOVE. It is said that they may at the same time be in conjugial love, the meaning being that they may retain this love stored up within themselves; for in the subject in whom that love is, it does not perish but is quiescent. The following are the reasons why conjugial love is preserved with those who prefer marriage to concubinage and yet enter into the latter for the causes mentioned above: [1] That this concubinage is not repugnant to conjugial love. [2] That it is not a separation from it. [3] That it is but a veiling around it. [4] That the veil is removed from them after death. 1. That this concubinage is not repugnant to conjugial love follows from what was demonstrated above, namely, that when it is from causes legitimate, just, and really weighty, it is not unlawful (nos. 467-73). [2] 2. That this concubinage is not a separation from conjugial love, is because when legitimate or just or really weighty causes arise, persuade, and impel, conjugial love is not separated with the marriage but is only interrupted, and love interrupted and not separated remains in the subject. The cause is the same as with one who is in a function which he loves, and is detained from it by social company, shows, or travel--his love of the function is not destroyed; or as with one who loves generous wine, yet when he drinks ignoble wine he does not lose his appetite and taste for the generous. [3] 3. That this concubinage is only a veiling around of conjugial love is because the love of concubinage is natural and the love of marriage spiritual, and when the spiritual love is intercepted, natural love veils it over. The lover himself does not know that such is the case because spiritual love is not sensated of itself but only through a natural love, and [then] it is sensated as a delight wherein is blessedness from heaven, while natural love by itself is sensated merely as delight. [4] 4. That the veil is removed after death is because then, from being natural the man becomes spiritual, and instead of a material body he enjoys a substantial body wherein natural delight from the spiritual is sensated in its eminence. That such is the case, I have heard from communication with some in the spiritual world, even from kings there, who in the natural world had been in concubinage from really weighty causes.


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