THE CHANGE OF STATE OF LIFE PRODUCED BY MARRIAGE IN MEN AND IN WOMEN

It is very well known to the learned and the wise what is meant by states of life and their changes, but since it is not known to the uneducated and uncomplicated, I must start by saying something on this subject. A person's state of life means what kind of person he is. Since everyone has two faculties which make up his life, what are called the intellect and the will, a person's state of life means what kind of person he is with regard to his intellect and his will. From this it is obvious that changes of state of life means changes in what kind of person he is with regard to what is to do with the intellect and what with the will. Everyone is continually changing in these two respects; but there is a difference in the variations he undergoes before and after marriage. It will be the aim of this chapter to prove this, in the following order. (i) A person's state of life undergoes continuous changes from infancy up to the end of his life, and thereafter for ever. (ii) The same happens to the inner form, which is that of his spirit. (iii) These changes are different in the case of men and of women, since men are from creation forms of knowledge, intelligence and wisdom, and women are forms of the love of these things in their menfolk. (iv) Men can have their minds lifted into a higher degree of light, women into a higher degree of heat; a women feels the delights of her heat in her husband's light. (v) Both men and women have different states of life before and after marriage. (vi) In the case of married couples their states of life change after marriage and develop as their minds become linked by conjugial love. (vii) Marriage also produces different forms in the souls and minds of married couples. (viii) A woman is really formed into a wife for her husband as described in Genesis. (ix) This formation is effected by the wife in secret ways, and this is meant by woman being created while the man slept. (x) This formation is effected by the wife linking her will with her husband's inner will. (xi) The purpose of this is to make the will of both into one, and so the two become a single person. (xii) This formation is effected by the wife making her husband's affections her own. (xiii) This formation is effected by the wife receiving what is propagated by her husband's soul, with a delight which arises from the fact that she wishes to be the love of her husband's wisdom. (xiv) In this way a young woman is formed into a wife, and a young man into a husband. (xv) In the marriage of one man with one wife, between whom truly conjugial love exists, the wife becomes more and more a wife, the husband more and more a husband. (xvi) Thus by stages their forms are from within made more perfect and noble. (xvii) The children born of a couple who enjoy truly conjugial love inherit from their parents the principle of the marriage of good and truth, which gives them the inclination and ability to perceive what has to do with wisdom in the case of a son, and to love the teachings of wisdom in the case of a daughter. (xviii) This happens because the child's soul is from the father, and its clothing is from the mother.

An explanation of these points now follows.