In the case of the chaste, those who take a religious view of marriage, the marriage of the spirit comes first, and that of the body follows. These are the people in whose case love climbs towards the soul, and comes down from that height (see 302). The souls of these people cut themselves off from unrestricted sexual love, and commit themselves to one person, regarding everlasting and eternal union with him or her, and its ever increasing blessings, as means to kindle the hope which constantly refreshes their minds.

[2] But the case of the unchaste is quite different. These are those whose view of marriage or the sanctity of marriage is not based on religion. They have a marriage of the body, but not of the spirit. If there is any appearance of a marriage of the spirit during the period of an engagement, still even if it climbs up by the lifting of their thoughts about it, it still falls back into longings in the will arising from the flesh; and so from the unchastity there rushes headlong into the body, befouling it at the lowest level with the alluring passion of love. Then just as quickly as it blazed up at first, it burns out and is succeeded by the coldness of midwinter; and so its failure is hastened. The period of engagement hardly does anything to help these people, other than to fill their longings with wantonness, which pollutes their principle of conjugial love.