All the events which take place in a person's body are influenced by his spirit. For it is well known that the mouth does not speak by itself, but it expresses what the mind thinks; again the hands do not act or the feet walk by themselves, but it is the mind's will which acts through them. Thus it follows that the mind speaks through the appropriate organ, and the mind acts through the appropriate parts of the body. It is plain from this that the nature of what the mouth speaks and the body does is determined by the nature of the mind. The conclusion to be drawn from this is that by its constant influence the mind instructs the body simultaneously to match its activities. So human bodies viewed inwardly are nothing but mental forms outwardly organised so as to carry out the soul's decisions. This preface is needed to show why it is that minds or spirits must first be united as it were in marriage, before the union extends to the bodily level; that is to say, so that when bodies marry, spirits do too, and consequently so that the couple both love each other in spirit, and thus in body.

[2] Let us now consider marriage from this point of view. When conjugial love links the minds of two people and shapes them for marriage, it also links and shapes their bodies for the same purpose. For, as I have said, the form of the mind is also inwardly the form of the body, with the one difference that the form of the body is outwardly organised so as to produce the result to which the inner form of the body is directed by the mind. The mind, however, which is formed by conjugial love, is not only inwardly spread around all parts throughout the body, but is as well inwardly in the reproductive organs, which occupy their particular region below the other bodily organs. In them the forms of the mind reach their final stage in the case of those united by conjugial love. Consequently the affections and thoughts of their minds are directed to that region. The activity of minds influenced by other loves is different, in that it does not penetrate to this region.

The conclusion can be drawn from this that conjugial love has inwardly the same nature in the appropriate organs as it has in the couple's minds or spirits. It is self-evident that after the wedding the marriage of the spirit becomes a marriage of the body and is thus complete. Consequently, if the marriage is chaste in spirit and is inspired by its holiness, it is similar when fully realised in the body; and the reverse occurs, if the marriage is unchaste in spirit.