Conjugial Love (Acton) n. 176

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176. XVII. THAT ACCORDING AS THERE IS MUTUAL AID, THESE OFFICES ALSO CONJOIN THE TWO INTO A ONE, AND AT THE SAME TIME MAKE ONE HOME. That in some affairs, the offices of the husband conjoin themselves with the offices of the wife, and the offices of the wife adjoin themselves to the offices of the husband; also that these conjunctions and adjunctions are a mutual aid and are effected according to that aid--this is among things well known in the world. But the main office which confederates and consociates the souls and lives of two partners, and gathers them into a one, is their common concern in the education of their children. In this the offices of the husband and those of the wife are distinct, and at the same time conjoint. They are distinct because the charge of suckling and educating the infants of both sexes, and also the instruction of girls up to the age when they may be addressed by men and associate with them, is an office proper to the wife, while the charge of the instruction of boys from childhood to puberty and from then until they become their own masters, is an office proper to the husband. But these offices become conjoint by consultations and mutual support and by much else which is of mutual assistance. That these offices, both the joint and the distinct, or those that are common to both partners and those that are individual, bind the animi of the partners together into a one, and that the love called storge also has this effect is well known. It is also well known that these offices, regarded in their separation and in their conjunction, make one home.


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