Conjugial Love (Rogers) n. 463

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463. (1) The taking of a mistress is of two kinds, which differ greatly from each other, one being in conjunction with the wife, the other in separation from the wife. It is apparent that the taking of a mistress is of two kinds, which differ greatly from each other, and that one kind is to add a rival to the bed and to cohabit jointly and at the same time with her and with the wife; while the second kind is to take as a partner of the bed, after legitimate and just separation from the wife, another woman in her stead. [2] These two kinds of circumstance in taking a mistress are as disparate from each other as dirty linen is from clean; and this can be seen by people who examine matters keenly and distinctly, but not by people who view them confusedly and indistinctly. Indeed, it can be seen by those who are in a state of conjugial love, but not by those who are caught up in a love of adultery. The first are in the light of day with respect to all the derivative offshoots of love for the opposite sex, but the latter in the darkness of night with respect to them. However, even those caught up in adultery can see these offshoots and the distinctions between them - not, indeed, in and of themselves, but from hearing others' discussions of them, inasmuch as the same faculty for elevating his intellect exists in the adulterer as in the chaste married partner. It is only that the adulterer, after acknowledging the distinctions on hearing them from others, then wipes them away when he immerses his intellect in his own sordid pleasure. For chasteness and unchasteness, and sanity and insanity, cannot exist together, but may be distinguished by a detached intellect. [3] In the spiritual world I once asked some people who did not regard adulteries as sins whether they knew of a single distinction between fornication, resorting to a courtesan, the two kinds of circumstance in taking a mistress, and various degrees of adultery. They said that one was the same as another. Then, when I asked them whether this was true of marriage as well, they looked around to see whether any of the clergy were around, and on not seeing any, they said that in itself it was the same. In contrast were people who, in the ideas of their thought, regarded adulteries as sins. These said that they saw, in their interior ideas which were a matter of perception, some distinctions, but that they had not yet made an effort to analyze them and differentiate between them. This I can declare, that the distinctions are perceived in their smallest particulars by angels in heaven. Consequently, in order to make clear that there are two kinds of circumstance in taking a mistress antithetical to each other, one of which destroys conjugial love, the other of which does not, therefore we will describe first the injurious kind, and afterwards the other, uninjurious one.


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