Conjugial Love (Rogers) n. 256

Previous Number Next Number Next Translation See Latin 

256. (20) Incidental reasons for coldness are also many; and of these, the first is ordinariness from being continually allowed. Ordinariness from being continually allowed is an incidental reason for coldness because it develops as an additional one in people who think of marriage and of their wives in a lascivious manner. Not, however, in those who think reverently of marriage and protectively of their wives. The fact that ordinariness from being continually allowed may cause even sources of enjoyment to become matters of indifference and also then boredom - this is something that is apparent in the case of plays and shows, musical concerts, dances, banquets, and other like pleasures - pleasures which in themselves are treats, because they are recreational. It is similar with the domestic relations and intimacies between married partners. Especially is it the case between partners who have not removed an unchaste love for the opposite sex from their love for each other, and when in the absence of ability they think nonsensically about its ordinariness from being continually allowed. It is evident in itself that for them this ordinariness is then reason for coldness. We call it an incidental reason, because it arises in addition to their intrinsic coldness as though it were the reason and lends support to it as an explanation. To turn aside coldness arising on this account as well, some wives are prompted by the prudence innate in them to make the allowable seem not allowable by various shows of resistance. It is altogether different, however, in the case of people who judge chastely of their wives. So it is that among angels, ordinariness from being continually allowed is the very delight of their soul and the containing medium of their conjugial love. For they experience the delight of that love continually, and its ultimate delights according as their minds are ready, uninterrupted by cares, thus according to the prudent good pleasure of the husbands.


This page is part of the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg

© 2000-2001 The Academy of the New Church