Conjugial Love (Chadwick) n. 148

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148. Everyone has implanted in him from creation and so by birth both an inner and an outer tendency towards marriage, the one spiritual, the other natural. He enters first into the outer one, and as he becomes spiritual into the inner one. If therefore he stays with the outer or natural tendency, then the inner or spiritual one is covered over, so that he does not know anything about it; in fact, he calls it an empty concept. But if he becomes spiritual, then he starts to know something about it, and later to form some idea of its nature, and so by stages to feel its charms, pleasures and delights. As this takes place, the veil between the outer and inner mentioned above begins to thin out, then, so to speak, to melt, and finally to dissolve and vanish. When this happens, the outer tendency towards marriage remains, but is constantly checked and purified of its dregs by the inner one. This goes so far that the outer one becomes as it were the face of the inner, and draws its pleasure from the blessedness in the inner, sharing at the same time its life and the delights of its power. Such is the banishment of promiscuity, the means by which a marriage becomes chaste. [2] It might be thought that the outer tendency remaining after the inner has separated itself from it, or separated it from itself, was much the same as the outer which has not been separated. But I have been told by angels that they are quite clearly different. They said that for instance the outer arising from the inner, what they called the external of the internal, was devoid of all wantonness, because the internal cannot engage in wanton play but only take chaste delight, and it imposes the same on its external, in which it feels its delights. It is quite different when the external is separated from the internal; this they said is wanton, both in general and in every part of it. They compared the outer tendency towards marriage arising from the inner to a splendid fruit, the pleasant taste and smell of which penetrate to the surface and give this a form answering to theirs. [3] They also compared the outer conjugial principle arising from the inner to a granary, the grain in which never grows less, but what is taken out is constantly replaced. But they compared the outer separated from the inner with wheat on a winnowing-fan, of which, when it is spread around, only the chaff is left, and this is blown away by the wind. This is what happens to conjugial love, unless promiscuity is banished.


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