Conjugial Love (Acton) n. 51

Previous Number Next Number Next Translation See Latin 

51. VII. THAT MARRIED PARTNERS ENJOY SIMILAR INTERCOURSE WITH EACH OTHER AS IN THE WORLD, BUT MORE DELIGHTFUL AND BLESSED, YET WITHOUT PROLIFICATION; FOR WHICH, OR IN PLACE OF IT, THEY HAVE SPIRITUAL PROLIFICATION, WHICH IS THAT OF LOVE AND WISDOM. That married partners enjoy similar intercourse as in the world, is because, after death, the male is a male and the female a female, and in both, an inclination to conjunction is implanted from creation. This inclination is an inclination of the spirit and thence of the body. Therefore, after death, when man becomes a spirit, the same mutual inclination continues, and this cannot exist without similar intercourse. For man is man as before, nor is there anything lacking either in the male or in the female. They are like themselves as to form, and equally so as to affections and thoughts. What else can follow then, but that they have similar intercourse? and since conjugial love is chaste, pure, and holy, that the intercourse is also complete? But see further on this subject in the Memorable Relation, no. 44. That the intercourse is then more delightful and blessed, is because, when that love becomes a love of the spirit, it becomes more interior and purer and therefore more perceptible; for every delight increases according to perception, and it so increases that its blessedness is observed in its delight.


This page is part of the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg

© 2000-2001 The Academy of the New Church