6106. MARRIAGE. On several occasions, there was with me a woman who said, and believed, that it is impossible to love one's married partner for long, for the reason that it becomes a usual thing, and is constantly permitted; but she received answer that, in heaven, where there are no adulteries - for they are abominated - that very usualness becomes delightful, and that they love the married partner because it is always permitted, and because the deliciousness of heaven enters at such times. That such a feeling of ordinariness towards a wife takes place is known to adulterers; wherefore, in order that that sense of ordinariness may be removed, and the lasciviousness of adultery occur, they wish the wife to refuse, indeed, to deny that she likes it, and to resist; and then, out of the ordinariness there arises, as it were the lasciviousness of adultery. Indeed, some who have pleasure in rapes, and consequently in an unlawful state, wish that [the wives] should fight against the husbands, and run away, and that the husband should violently force her, and tear her dress, she still resisting. The women, in such a case, may be compared to cats, which thus fight, scream out, and run away; whereby potency is excited in the male cat, and then the female cat yields herself captive. I made inquiries of spirits newly arrived from the world, who did not regard lasciviousness as sin - all of whom, nevertheless, when they enter the world of spirits, desire to go to heaven - and said that in hell it is allowed to commit whoredom and adultery, but it is not allowed in heaven, but only to love the married partner, and live with her to eternity, and never to put her away. I asked whether they would more willingly be in heaven or in hell. I asked over a hundred, and never received a reply from one of such a quality. As respects the state of those who are in hells, under judges, it is, that, in a separate chamber, behind the males, are some who had been women. It was permitted to the men to conjoin to themselves anyone of these, and have her for their woman; but it was not permitted to do so with any others of them there, thus to commit promiscuous whoredom. There exist hells filled with harlots, into which newcomers enter, and commit whoredom to satiety. They are punished by various filthy diseases there; and on that account they refrain. There are infamous societies there, where harlots and adulterers resort. There are gatherings where harlots, every night, choose themselves males: they are not gatherings where males choose themselves harlots. The harlots there are able, by means of phantasies, to render themselves beautiful. Harlots who excel in ingenuity are called sirens; they appear like mice. There are the larger kinds,* there, and the smaller kinds there. Wherefore, such females are set over them as hold them in obedience, and compel them to labor. These fly from cats, like mice and dormice. Some, there, are cats. * The "larger kinds" are probably rats, which the ancient Latin writers designate by the same word as "mice," viz., mus. -TR.