Conjugial Love (Acton) n. 195

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195. X. THAT THIS FORMATION BY THE WIFE IS EFFECTED BY THE CONJUNCTION OF HER WILL WITH THE INTERNAL WILL OF THE MAN. That with the man are rational wisdom and moral wisdom, and that the wife conjoins herself with those things with the man which pertain to his moral wisdom, has been shown above (nos. 163-65). All things pertaining to rational wisdom make his understanding, and all things pertaining to moral wisdom make his will. It is with these latter, being those which form the man's will, that the wife conjoins herself. It is the same whether it be said that the wife conjoins herself or that she conjoins her will to the man's will; for a wife is born voluntary and hence does what she does from the will. It is said with the man's internal will because man's will has its seat in his intellect, and the intellectual of man is the inmost of woman, according to what was said above (no. 32) and frequently thereafter respecting the formation of woman from man. Men have also an external will, but this often partakes of simulation and dissimulation. A wife sees this will clearly but does not conjoin herself with it except in pretence or playfully.


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