480. II. THAT SIMPLE ADULTERY IS THAT OF AN UNMARRIED MAN WITH THE WIFE OF ANOTHER, OR OF AN UNMARRIED WOMAN WITH THE HUSBAND OF ANOTHER. By adultery here and in what follows is meant whoredom as opposed to marriage. It is opposed because it violates the covenant for life contracted between married partners, rends their love asunder, defiles it, and shuts off the union initiated at the time of betrothal and confirmed in the beginning of marriage; for after the pact and covenant, the conjugial love of a man with one wife unites their souls. Adultery does not dissolve this union, for it cannot be dissolved; but it shuts it off as one who shuts off a fountain at its source and thus stops its flow, and the basin is filled with filthy and stinking waters. In like manner conjugial love, whose origin is a union of souls, is besmeared and covered over by adultery; and when this is besmeared, then, from below rises up the love of adultery; and as this increases, the former love becomes carnal and the latter rises up against conjugial love and destroys it. Hence is the opposition between adultery and marriage.