184. THE CHANGE OF THE STATE OF LIFE WITH MEN AND WITH WOMEN THROUGH MARRIAGE
What is meant by states of life and their changes is well known to the learned and wise, but is unknown to the unlearned and simple. Something concerning them must therefore be premised. The state of a man's life is its quality; and because in every man there are two faculties which make his life, being the faculties called understanding and will, the state of a man's life is its quality as to understanding and will. It is clear from this that by changes of the state of life are meant changes in respect to the things which belong to the understanding, and to those which belong to the will. That every man is continually changing in respect to these two, but with a difference in the varieties of the changes before marriage and after marriage, will be taken up for demonstration in the present chapter. This shall be done in the following order:
I. That the state of man's life from infancy to the end of life, and afterwards to eternity, is continually changing.
II. So likewise the internal form which is that of his spirit.
III. That these changes are of one kind with men and of another kind with women, because, by creation, men are forms of science, intelligence, and wisdom, and women, forms of the love of these with men.
IV. That with men there is elevation of the mind into superior light, and with women elevation of the mind into superior heat; and that woman feels the delights of her heat in the light of the man.
V. That the states of life with men and women are of one kind before marriage and of another after marriage.
VI. That with married partners, the states of life after marriage are changed, and follow one after the other according to the conjunctions of their minds by conjugial love.
VII. That marriages also induce new forms upon the souls and minds of the partners.
VIII. That the woman is formed into the man's wife actually according to the description in the Book of Creation.
IX. That this formation is effected by the wife in secret ways; and that this is what is meant by the woman being created while the man slept.
X. That this formation by the wife is effected by the conjunction of her will with the internal will of the man.
XI. To the end that the will of both may become one will, and thus the two, one man.
XII. That this formation by the wife is effected by the appropriation of the affections of the husband.
XIII. That this formation is effected by the wife by the reception of the propagations of the soul of the husband with the delight arising from this, that she wills to be the love of her husband's wisdom.
XIV. That thus a virgin is formed into a wife, and a young man into a husband.
XV. That in the marriage of one man with one wife between whom there is love truly conjugial, the wife becomes more and more a wife, and the husband more and more a husband.
XVI. That thus their forms also are successively perfected from within, and ennobled.
XVII. That offspring born of two who are in love truly conjugial derive from their parents the conjugial of good and truth, from which they have an inclination and faculty, if a son, for perceiving the things which are of wisdom, and if a daughter, for loving the things which wisdom teaches.
XVIII. That this comes to pass because the soul of the offspring is from the father, and its clothing from the mother.