46. I. THAT AFTER DEATH LOVE OF THE SEX REMAINS WITH EVERY MAN SUCH AS IT HAD BEEN INTERIORLY, THAT IS, IN HIS INTERIOR WILL AND THOUGHT, IN THE WORLD. Every love follows man after death, love being the esse of his life; and the ruling love, which is the head of all the rest, continues with man to eternity, and with it the subordinate loves. The reason why they continue, is because love pertains properly to man's spirit, and to his body from the spirit; and after death man becomes a spirit and so carries his love with him. And because love is the esse of man's life, it is evident that as the man's life was in the world, such will be his lot after death.
As to love of the sex, this is the universal of all loves, for it is implanted by creation in man's very soul, from which is the essence of the whole man, and this for the sake of the propagation of the human race. This love especially remains because, after death, man is a man and woman a woman, and there is nothing in their soul, mind, or body which is not masculine in the male and feminine in the female. Moreover, the two have been so created that they strive for conjunction, yea, for such conjunction that they may become one. This striving is the love of the sex which precedes conjugial love. Now, because the conjunctive inclination is inscribed upon each and all things of the male and of the female, it follows that this inclination cannot be obliterated and pass away with the body.