305. (9) During the time of their betrothal it is not lawful for them to be joined physically. For if they are the order engraved on conjugial love perishes. To explain this, there are in human minds three regions, the highest of which is called celestial, the intermediate one spiritual, and the lowest one natural. A person dwells by birth in the lowest region, but he ascends into the next higher one, called spiritual, by living according to truths of religion, and into the highest one by achieving a marriage of love and wisdom. All kinds of evil and lascivious lusts reside in the lowest region, which is called natural. In the next higher region, however, which is called spiritual, there are no evil and lascivious lusts, for this is the region into which a person is led by the Lord when he is born anew. And in the highest region, which is called celestial, one finds conjugial chastity surrounded by its love. A person is raised into this last region by a love of serving useful ends, and because marriage serves the most excellent ends of all, by truly conjugial love. [2] One can see in summary from this that, from the first beginnings of its warmth, conjugial love has to be raised from the lowest region into a higher one in order to become chaste and to thus descend from a chaste origin through the intermediate and lowest regions into the body. When this is the case, its descending chastity purifies the lowest region of its unchaste elements. This in turn causes the outmost expression of that love to become also chaste. Now, if the sequential and orderly development of this love is hastened prematurely by physical conjunctions before the proper time, it follows that the person is acting from the lowest region which by birth is unchaste. It is a familiar experience that this occasions and gives rise to coldness toward the marriage and indifference combined with loathing toward the other partner. But still, various differences occur in the outcomes of premature conjunctions, likewise in the outcomes of an excessive prolongation as well as of an excessive shortening of the time of betrothal. However, because of their number and diversities, these differences cannot easily be enumerated.