119. True conjugial love is impossible except between couples, that is, in the marriage of one man with one wife; and not with many wives, because conjugial love is mutual and reciprocal, and the life of each is in that of the other, so that they are as one. Such a union is possible between couples, but not between more, since more tear that love apart. The men of the Most Ancient Church, who were celestial and as well able to perceive good and truth as the angels, had only one wife. They said that with one wife they experienced celestial delights and happiness, and that they shuddered at the bare mention of marriage with several wives; it is evident that the marriage of one wife and one husband descends from the marriage of good and truth from the Lord's words in Matthew xix 3-12, which see and quote; also from Adam's words about his wife. By Adam and his wife in that passage is meant in the internal representative sense the Most Ancient Church, which was the golden age, the time of Saturn, which the ancient writers mention.