Treasuring Marriage

Old Testament

Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife,
and they shall become one flesh.

Now Jacob loved Rachel; so he said, "I will serve you seven years for Rachel
your younger daughter." So Jacob served seven years for Rachel,
and they seemed only a few days to him because of the love he had for her.

You shall not commit adultery

Trust in the Lord, and do good....
Commit your way to the Lord,
Trust also in Him,
And He shall bring it to pass.

Create in me a clean heart, O God,
And renew a steadfast spirit within me.

Give me understanding, and I shall keep Your law;
Indeed, I shall observe it with my whole heart.
Make me walk in the path of Your commandments,
For I delight in it.

Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean;
Put away the evil of you doings from before My eyes.
Cease to do evil, learn to do good....

The New Testament

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul,
and with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.

"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

"The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid; and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it."

"Have you not read that He who made them in the beginning 'made them male and female' and said 'For this reason a man shall leave his mother and father and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh?' So then they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate."

"You have heard that it was said to those of old, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart."

"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another as I have loved you...."

The Heavenly Doctrines

The Nature of True Marriage Love or Conjugial Love

Truly conjugial love with its delights comes only from the Lord and is given to those who live according to His commandments.

Heavenly conjugial love consists in one living, content in the Lord, together with one's partner whom one loves very tenderly, and with one's children. In the world this brings a person a deeper pleasure, and in the next life heavenly joy.

For people who desire truly conjugial love, the Lord provides similar partners, and if they are not found on earth, He provides them in heaven.

The delight of true marriage love not only endures to old age in the world, but after death becomes the delight of heaven and is there filled with an interior delight that grows more and more perfect to eternity.

The states produced by this love are innocence, peace, tranquility, inmost friendship, complete trust, a mutual desire of the mind and heart to do the other every good; also, as a result of all these, bliss, felicity, delight, pleasure, and, owing to an eternal enjoyment of states like this, the happiness of heaven.

The conjugial union of one man with one wife is the precious jewel of human life and the repository of Christian religion.

Friendship introduces the love and causes it to be truly conjugial; and then the love in turn causes this, its friendship, to become also conjugial--a friendship which differs greatly from that of any other love, because it is a full one.

Conjugial love in a person lies within love for the opposite sex, like a gem in its native rock.

Holy, Pure, and Clean

Conjugial love is celestial, spiritual, holy, pure and clean-more so than any other love which exists from the Lord in angels of heaven or people of the church. And into this love have been gathered all joys and all delights.

No others can be in a state of truly conjugial love but those who receive it from the Lord--namely, those who go to Him directly and live the life of the church from Him--for the reason that this love is celestial, spiritual, holy, pure and clean. No others can be in a state of spiritual conjugial love but those who are in it from the Lord, because heaven is in that love.

Nothing stops the wellspring of conjugial love and its flow but adultery. When this pure and holy wellspring is stopped up, it is like a jewel in excrement or bread in vomit. This is a sinful evil, because it covers over something holy and allows something profane to take its place.

Chaste Love

Chastity is the purity of conjugial love.

Men who are in a state of truly conjugial love have a chaste love for the opposite sex, which is interior spiritual friendship. It is chaste, because they are only in love with their wives.

Conjugial love is more and more purified and becomes chaste in people who become spiritual from the Lord. A person becomes spiritual as his rationality-which stands in between heaven and the world-begins to draw its life or soul from what flows in from heaven. This occurs as he becomes affected by and is delighted with wisdom…. As wisdom and its accompanying love increase in married partners, so conjugial love is purified in them.

Abstinence from adultery physically is not chastity unless it is also at the same time abstinence in spirit.

Conjugial Love 146

Conjugial love does not become entirely chaste or pure in people, not even in angels. In those who are becoming spiritual from the Lord, chastity exists above and a lack of chastity below, and between the two qualities the Lord puts a door, so to speak, with a hinge. This door is opened by conscious decision, but the Lord provides that it not stand open so as to allow the one quality to pass through to the other and become mixed together with it. The Lord regards primarily the intention of the will, and to the extent that a person has the intention and perseveres to that extent he is introduced into purity and progressively draws nearer to it.

Fornication is lust, but not the lust of adultery. It springs from the natural self, and has in it animal desire and lust. A fornicator casts his gaze upon the opposite sex indiscriminately and promiscuously, and does not direct it as yet to one of the sex. As long as he is in that state, it is lust that moves him to do what he does. But according as he turns his eyes to one, and loves uniting his life with hers, his desire turns into chaste affection.

Chastity is ascribed only to monogamous marriages…of one man with one wife.

Chastity in marriage does not come about through renunciation of licentious relationships unless this is done in accordance with religion.

A union with a partner of a similar and compatible nature may be provided on earth when people from their youth love, desire, and seek from the Lord a lawful and lovely partnership with one and who reject wandering lusts as an offense to the nostrils.

Husband and Wife in True Marriage Love

Love with its inmost friendship constantly increases in the wife, and wisdom with its happiness in the husband, and this to eternity.

Wives love the bonds of marriage from the time its covenant is established, and this the more as they are loved in return by their husbands, or in other words, the more their husbands love these bonds.

It is the nature of love to will to share with another, indeed, to confer joys upon another whom it loves from the heart, and to seek its own joys in return from doing so.

Married couples in heaven enjoy the same intimate relations with each other as in the world, only more delightful and blessed, but without begetting children.

The Union of Minds Should Come First in Marriage

There is a truly conjugial love, which today is so rare that people scarcely know that it exists. The possibility of the kind of conjugial love may be recognized from the first state of that love, when it is first stealing into and entering the heart of a young man and woman, as it does in the case of those who are beginning to love only one of the opposite sex and to want him or her as their betrothed. And still more during the time of engagement, as this stretches on and draws nearer the wedding. And finally at the time of the wedding, and in the first days after it.

The early love in marriage emulates truly conjugial love and presents a kind of visible image of it. This is the case because a love for the opposite sex in general, which is unchaste, is then renounced, and in its place love for one of the sex sits implanted, which is a truly conjugial love and chaste. What man at that time does not look upon other women with a loveless nod, and on his one and only with a loving one?

With chaste people--who are people who think of marriage in accordance with religion--a marriage of the spirit precedes and one of the body follows after. Their souls turn away from an unrestricted love for the opposite sex and devote themselves to one, looking to an everlasting and eternal union with him or her and the growing blessings of that union, which fuel in them a hope that continually refreshes their minds.

Virginity is the crown of a woman's chastity and a token of conjugial love. It is also a symbol of the sacredness of marriage, because after yielding the flower of her virginity the bride commits and devotes herself wholly to the bridegroom, now her husband, and the bridegroom conversely commits and devotes himself wholly to the bride, now his wife.

After the wedding the marriage of the spirit becomes also one of the body and thus complete.

Honoring Marriage by Rejecting Adultery

The sixth commandment is 'You are not to commit adultery.' A man by committing adultery understands promiscuous behavior, obscene acts, improper suggestions and filthy thoughts.

Only those people know the blissful delights of conjugial love who reject the horrible delights of adultery. And no one can reject these except one who is wise from the Lord, and no one is wise from the Lord unless he performs useful services from a love of doing them.

A man in whom the life of charity is present is minded rather to protect his neighbor's wife lest anyone should do such great harm to her, and regards adultery as a crime committed against conscience, such as destroys conjugial love and the responsibilities that go with it.

All people who regard adulterous affairs as nothing, that is, who believe they are not sins and who commit them deliberately at heart are evildoers and irreligious. For the human inclination toward marriage goes hand in hand with religion at every step. Every little step and every stride away from religion or toward religion is also a step or stride away from or toward the conjugial inclination [the wish to live with only one wife].

Challenges in Marriage

Conjugial love can exist in one [marriage partner] and not in the other, for one may fervently vow for himself a chaste marriage, while the other does not know what chastity is. One may love matters that have to do with the church, while the other loves only matters that have to do with the world. One may be with his mind in a state of heaven, while the other is with his mind in a state of hell. As a result, conjugial love may exist on the part of one and not on the part of the other.

After marriage, the states of life in married partners change and progress according to the bonds formed between their minds by conjugial love. In each partner, man and wife, the changes of state and progressions of state after marriage depend on the kind of conjugial love they have, being thus changes and progressions that tend either to join or to estrange their minds. The reason is that conjugial love not only varies but also swings back and forth in the partners.

A chaste wife rarely if ever fails to love her husband, but what fails is her being loved by her husband in return due to a lack of elevation in his wisdom, which alone receives her love.

People experience spiritual warmth and spiritual coldness. Spiritual warmth is love, while spiritual coldness is its absence and loss.

Internal reasons for cold states [in marriage] stem from religion, such as the rejection of religion by one or both partners or differences in religion.

External reasons for coldness include a dissimilarity of disposition and manners, believing that conjugial love is no different from licentious love, rivalry between the partners for superiority, absence of focus on any pursuit or business, age or class differences.

Appearances of love and friendship develop because the marriage covenant is a compact to the end of life. These appearances are simulations of conjugial love, which are commendable because they are useful and necessary.

The love of dominion of one over the other entirely takes away conjugial love and its heavenly delight, for conjugial love and its delight consists in the will of one being that of the other.

Picturing Conjugial Love and Its Opposite

The uncleanness of hell springs from licentious love, and the cleanness of heaven from conjugial love. The lascivious delights of licentious love are represented by piles of excrement and dirt, stenches, and animals such as pigs, snakes, and birds [probably night birds]. The chaste delights of conjugial love in heaven are represented by gardens and fields of flowers, aromas of fruits and fragrances of flowers, and animals such as lambs, young goats, doves, and birds of paradise.

The delights of licentious love may be compared to a house whose walls on the outside glow…with a false hue of gold like specular stones [such as mica, selenite, and talc] while the rooms inside within the walls contain piles of dirt and trash of every kind. In contrast, the delights of conjugial love may be likened to a house whose walls glisten as though of pure gold, and whose rooms within are sparkling, as though filled with treasure-troves of many precious things.

Love truly conjugial is represented in heaven by various things such as adamantine auras (sparkling as if from rubies and carbuncles), beautiful rainbows and golden rains, which, when they are beheld, fill the bystanders with delight.