Why Marry?

Many people today would like everyone to believe that being single is every bit as good as being married.  However, this goes against the basic principle that no one on earth, man or woman, was created for their own sake.  In reality, all people were created for the sake of others (TCR 406).  It is the particular case with women that they:

were created to be beauties, not for their own sake, but for the sake of men, so that men’s natural hardness might become softer, the natural solemnness of their dispositions more amiable, and the natural coldness of their hearts warmer.  And this is what happens to them when they become one flesh with their wives…. Nothing is created in [the universe] more perfect than a woman attractive in appearance and becoming in behavior, in order that a man may thank the Lord for such a gift and repay it by receiving wisdom from Him. (CL 56.5)

This passage also reflects a similar fact regarding the wisdom of a man, that it was not created for its own sake, but for the sake of giving form to the life brought to it by its wife.

The basic fact of creation is that being single is not better than being married.  This stems from the fact that:

The state of marriage is preferable to a state of celibacy … The state of marriage is preferable because it exists from creation; because the origin of it is the marriage between good and truth; because it corresponds to the marriage of the Lord and the church; because the church and conjugial love are constant companions; and because the use it serves is more excellent than the uses served by anything else in creation, seeing that it results, according to order, in the propagation of the human race, and also of the angelic heaven, since heaven exists from the human race.  In addition to this, marriage is the completion of a person, for by marriage a person becomes a complete person … None of these things is true of celibacy. (CL 156)

For those who would argue this point, let them consider that:

if one takes the proposition that a state of celibacy is better than the state of marriage and turns it over to an inquisition to approve and confirm by arguments, then these arguments lead to the following conclusions:  That marriage is not sacred, nor can any marriage be chaste.  Indeed, that chastity in the female sex is possible only in the case of those who refrain from marrying and take a vow of perpetual virginity.  And moreover, that people who take a vow of perpetual celibacy are the kind of people meant by ‘eunuchs who make themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of God’ (Matthew 19:12).  Besides many other conclusions which, stemming from an untrue premise, are also untrue. ‘Eunuchs who make themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of God’ mean spiritual eunuchs, and these are people who in their marriages abstain from the evils of licentious relationships. (CL 156)

Marriage is preferable to remaining single because, as will be seen, the only truly good manner of being single is to abstain from licentiousness, lasciviousness, and the resulting sexual activities.  In other words, the only orderly form of single living is celibacy.  And, as was stated above, marriage is preferable to celibacy.  Therefore it can be seen that marriage is an integral part of life that is to be pursued in relation to spiritual life even with those who, on this earth, are unable to find a suitable partner.  More on this below.

Getting In The Mindset For Marriage

The mindset for marriage is a mental approach to life that is affirmative to spiritual living.  The mindset for marriage is a perspective that seeks to love others outside of itself and attain wisdom of life.  The mindset for marriage requires that a person acknowledge God and His role in their life so that He will be able to work with them in preparing them for marriage and the happiness of life in heaven.

Too often the world mistakes cleverness for wisdom (CL 182).  “An ability to confirm whatever one pleases is not the mark of an intelligent person; rather, the mark of an intelligent person is to be able to see that truth is true and falsity false, and to confirm that” (CL 233).  The mindset for marriage requires people “to think and draw conclusions from ends and causes [for this] is to proceed from goods and truths seen in the higher region of the mind to their effects in the lower region – this being the way of human rationality from creation” (CL 408).

The single most important aspect of right thinking is to not attribute to nature things that rightly are God’s (CL 415).  Too often when it comes to marriage, marital relations, or other related subjects, people’s minds turn to nature, which is to say science, to explain phenomena which are predominantly spiritual, and therefore from God.  The fact is “nature was created to serve the life which is in God and from God … Nature in itself is lifeless, and thus does nothing of itself, but is actuated by life” (CL 415).  Therefore, it is important, when thinking about preparation for marriage, to realize that the Word of God reveals truths which are true not just in some ethereal fashion, but in down-to-earth, real-life ways.

There is a bit of a warning in the statement that “all in heaven worship God, and all in hell worship nature” (CL 415).  The fact is “people who believe that the Divine operates in every single thing of nature, can, from the many things which they see in nature, confirm themselves on the side of the Divine, just as well as and even more than those who confirm themselves on the side of nature” (CL 416, see also CL 417). Whereas “people who attribute all things to nature see these wonders, indeed, but they think only that they exist, and say that nature produces them” (CL 416).  Therefore “let everyone guard himself, therefore, from confirmations on the side of nature.  Let him confirm himself on the side of the Divine.  There is no lack of material for it” (CL 421).

There is one particular aspect of marriage and human life which seems most often to be put off as non-essential, the church.  Truly conjunctive marriage, with all of its joys, is only available to people who pursue true spiritual life, the life of religion.  If “church is just not your thing” it should be a matter of reflection that the Lord teaches that “no good love exists in people who reject the sanctities of the church and banish them from the front of their heads to the back, or from before their hearts to behind them” (CL 240).  This is not to say that only priests and other full-time employees of the church can have true love.  Rather, it is the case that no matter what your occupation, believing in the Lord God Jesus Christ, shunning evils, and doing good must be central to your decision-making process, your lifestyle, and your preparation for and participation in marriage.

What Men And Women Both Have

In concluding this discussion of masculinity and femininity it is important to see what men and women share in common.  The most important similarity is that “every person has in him two faculties which form his life, faculties which are called intellect and will, the state of a person’s life is its character in relation to his intellect and will” (CL 184).  Although a man’s intellect and will are both intellectual and a woman’s intellect and will are both voluntary, it is essential to remember that they both share these human faculties.  It is important to recognize this because it derives from the fact that men and women both have a “spiritual rationality of the mind and consequently the natural sensuality of the body” which provide for a union between the two (CL 59.2).  Not only are these necessary for the union of man and wife, but in both men and women “the outer form that has to do with the body is perfected according to the perfection of the inner form which has to do with the mind; for the mind acts upon the body, and not the reverse” (CL 187).

Another aspect of humanity that men and women share in common is the church.  “The Lord calls those people brothers and sisters who belong to His church (Matthew 12:49, 25:40, 28:10, Mark 3:35, Luke 8:21)” (CL 120).  It is necessary to remember that:

a husband does not represent the Lord and his wife the church, because husbands and their wives both together form the church … the Lord is the head of the church, people – both men and women – are the church, and still more so husbands and wives together … The church is implanted first in the man, and through the man in his wife, because the man with his understanding acquires truth that the church teaches, and the wife acquires it from the man.  But if the reverse takes place, it is not according to order.  Nevertheless, this sometimes happens, but only in the case of men who either are not lovers of wisdom and so are not part of the church, or who hang like slaves on the bidding of their wives. (CL 125; see also CL 21)

One implication of this passage is that women should avoid dominating their husbands in matters of religion, for it is better for the church to come into a marriage by means of the husband.  There are also two warnings to men here, men must pursue wisdom and truths of the church, and secondly they must not become irrationally obedient to their wives (Cf. “Warnings to Men”).  I say “irrationally obedient”, because to “hang like slaves on the bidding of their wives” indicates that the husband in this case is not fulfilling his role as the rational sight of truth, thereby not supporting his wife in being the vehicle for the influx of conjugial love.  For wives to be the will and husbands to be the understanding of the couple, both must use the tools that they were given by the Lord – the wife the ability to feel or perceive love, and the husband, the ability to see or understand truth.  For these cannot exist in exclusion of each other.  The husband’s wisdom depends on the wife and the wife’s love depends on her husband’s wisdom.

Men should beware of thinking of themselves as dominant, for:

It seems as though truth is the primary thing in the church, because it is its first concern in time…The learned have given the palm to thought, which has to do with the intellect, over affection, which has to do with the will.  As a result, what the good of charity is and what the affection of the will is lie buried in a mound of earth, so to speak, and some have also thrown dirt on them … to keep them from rising again…. The good of charity is nevertheless the primary thing in the church, and this can be plainly seen by people who have not closed off the way from heaven into their understanding by arguments in support of faith as the only thing that makes the church, and in support of thought as the only things that makes the man. (CL 126)

Let men be wary, therefore, of thinking that their erudite thoughts are the substance of their wisdom.  For it is clear that wisdom is found in truths applied to life.

The fact is:

There is a conjugial element in the smallest particulars in every person, both male and female; only … the conjugial element in the male and the conjugial element in the female are not the same, but the conjugial element of the male possesses a capacity for conjunction with the conjugial element of the female, and vice versa, even in the least particulars.  This he showed by the marriage of will and understanding in every individual, the two of which operate together in the least constituents of the mind and in the least constituents of the body; from which it can be seen that there is a conjugial element in each component, even the least. (CL 316)

Women and men work together like the will and understanding.  In this case the male, or:

Man was created to do what he does in freedom in accordance with reason, and this entirely as though on his own.  Without these two faculties a person would not be a human being but an animal; for he would not receive anything flowing into him from heaven and adopt it as his own, and therefore nothing of eternal life could be implanted in him, since this must be implanted in him as his for it to be his. (CL 438)

On the other hand, a woman, or:

The will, which makes a person the person he is, is not moved even the least bit except by delight; for the will, regarded in itself, is nothing but the action and effect of some love, thus of delight, inasmuch as it is some element of fancy, liking and pleasure which causes one to will.  Moreover, because it is the will that impels the intellect to think, there is not the least idea existing in the thought which does not flow in from a delight of the will. (CL 461)

There is an elegant illustration of the interaction between the masculine and the feminine to be found in examining the human brain.  For:

the cerebrum is devoted to wisdom and its truths, while the cerebellum is devoted to love and its goods.  Therefore a person who looks with his face to the Lord receives wisdom from him, and through that wisdom, love.  But a person who looks away from the Lord receives love and not wisdom; and love without wisdom is love that originates with man and not from the Lord. (CL 444)

And so it may be seen that wisdom is implanted in the human being by means of the man, and to the degree that wisdom is introduced, to that degree love is able to be introduced by means of the woman.  This love then gives life to the individual from the Lord and fosters the development of further wisdom.  And so on to eternity.  For conjugial love is an eternal pursuit.  And the conjunction between one man and one woman is a gift from God which is the life of heaven.

An Afterthought

It is interesting to note that “wives in the third heaven love their husbands on account of their husband’s wisdom and in response to it, and the husbands love their wives on account of and in response to that love directed toward them, and so they are united” (CL 42.4) and again that “the husband in heaven is a form of wisdom, and his wife a form of the love of it, and both moreover are spiritual” (CL 44.9).  The relationship between husband and wife, as between wisdom and love, would appear to be both a celestial and a spiritual state of marriage (Cf. AC 8994).

Jealousy In Women

It was discovered earlier that:

when a love is attacked, it defends itself through its intellect, and the intellect through rational and conjectural appraisals, by which it pictures to itself the outcome.  Especially does it do so by such contemplations as are bound together with the love that is being attacked.  If it did not do this, by the loss of that love the whole form would be upset. (CL 361; see also CL 360)

The essential facts to understand about jealousness between the genders are:

Jealousness in men and jealousness in women are different, being from a different origin.  The origin of jealousness in men is in the intellect, whereas in women it is in the will adjoined to the intellect of her man.  Jealousness in men is therefore like a blaze of fury and anger, while in women it is like a fire contained by various fears, by the varying ways in which they regard their husbands, by the varying ways in which they view their own love, and by their varying degrees of prudence in not revealing their love to their husbands by a display of jealousness.  These differences exist, because wives are forms of love, and men recipients; and wives have to be careful not to destroy their love in men, whereas its recipients do not have to exercise the same care with their wives … The situation is different in the case of spiritual people.  In their case the man’s jealousness is transmitted to the wife, as the wife’s love is transmitted to the husband; and therefore the jealousness in one and the other against the attempts of a transgressor appear alike.  However, against the attempts of a transgressing trollop the wife’s jealousness is infused into the husband, which is felt as grief weeping and moving the conscience. (CL 379)

Therefore it is clear that for women, jealousness requires prudence in the case of natural people that is not the case with men.  However, in a spiritual marriage, when a couple is working toward actual conjunction, partner’s can rely on each other to tip them off to possible threats to their relationship.  Women from their perception of their husband’s attraction to them can warn him when he is sensing an attraction from another source.  And men, for their part, can warn their wives when they judge that a particular man is in pursuit of her.

Conjugial Love And The Love Of Children

The atmosphere of the love of little children:

affects the feminine sex primarily, thus mothers, and the masculine sex or fathers from them.  This stems from the [fact] that the atmosphere of conjugial love is received by women and communicated through women to men, for the reason that women are born forms of love for the understanding of men, and the understanding is its recipient.  It is the same with a love of little children, because this originates from conjugial love. (CL 393)

The fact that the love of little children is an offshoot of conjugial love explains why it is that:

the state of love that wives have before conception is of one character, and of another character after conception to the time of birth.  [For] a love of procreating and the subsequent love of the child procreated are implanted in women in their conjugial love, but … these two loves are separated in her when the end, which is the love of procreating, commences its progress.  It is apparent from a number of indications that love for the child or storgé is then transmitted from the wife to the husband, and also that the love of procreating, which in a woman is united, as said, with her conjugial love, is then not the same. (CL 403)

Many have thought that:

mothers acquire a love of little children from their having nourished them in the womb with their own blood, and from the children’s consequent assimilation of their life, and so from a sympathetic union between them.  But this is nevertheless not the origin of that love, since, if, without the mother’s knowing, another child were substituted after the birth in place of the true one, she would love it with equal tenderness as if it were her own.  Moreover, little children are sometimes loved more by their nurses than by their mothers. (CL 393)

The origin of the love of little children is “from no other source than the conjugial love implanted in every woman, to which has been adjoined a love of conceiving, the delight of which causes a wife to be prepared for reception.  This is the first beginning of that love, which after the birth passes with its delight in fullness to the child” (CL 393, see also CL 409).

One question that may arise is, how then can parents who are not in conjugial love, love their children?  The answer is that:

In homes in which there is no conjugial love between husband and wife, it nevertheless still exists in the wife, through which she has some external conjunction with her husband.  It is for this same reason that even licentious women love their offspring.  For anything that has been implanted in souls from creation and looks to procreation, is indelible and cannot be eradicated.        CL 409

This teaching uncovers the fact that conjugial love is irremovably in women.  The reason that all women love little children is that this is an outlet for their conjugial love – even if their decisions or circumstances have occluded the more direct outlet which is marriage.

Men Can’t See Love

Having established previously that men only see truth and women only see love, when a statement is made that “people know that love exists, but they do not know what love is” (CL 34, see also DLW 1) it opens the mind to wonder if perhaps this is only referring to men.  This questioning is further supported when it is seen that “whenever someone meditates on it, he cannot then form for himself any idea in his thought about it, thus he cannot bring it into the light of his understanding, because it is not a matter of light but of warmth” (CL 34) or that “he does not know that love is his very life, not only the general life in his whole body and the general life in all his thoughts, but also the life in every single particle of them” (CL 34).

It was shown above that “women have an interior perception of love, while men have only a more superficial perception” (CL 47r) and that angel wives “can see keenly what attraction you feel and therefore what affection you have, which is where your thought concerning love for the opposite sex comes from” (CL 155r.2).  It is plain in many places that men see truth and women see love.  An example of this is:

The Lord attaches and joins good to the truths a person acquires, because a person cannot take goodness as originating with him, since it is invisible to his sight.  The reason is that goodness is a matter of warmth rather than light, and warmth is not seen but felt.  Consequently, when a person sees truth in his thinking, he rarely reflects on the good that flows into it from the love in his will and gives it life.  A wife also does not reflect on the goodness in herself, but on her husband’s inclination toward her, which depends on the ascent of his understanding to wisdom.  She influences him with the goodness that is in her from the Lord without the husband’s having any awareness of that influence.  From this the truth now appears, that a person acquires truth from the Lord, and that the Lord joins good to the truth according as the truth is put to use, thus as a person tries to think wisely and so live wisely. (CL 123)

In this passage, therefore, “a person” must mean either a married pair or the husband.  This hypothesis is furthered by the reflections of some angel wives who explain how it is that women see love:

Every man has five senses … but we have also a sixth sense, which is a sense of all the delights of conjugial love in our husbands. … All the happy and pleasant states of the thoughts of their mind, and all the joys and delights of their heart, and the merry and cheerful feelings in their breast – these are transmitted from them to us, taking form in us and becoming perceptible, discernible, and tangible…In a word, the spiritual delights of our husbands take on a kind of natural embodiment in us.  And for that reason, our husbands call us the sensory organs of chaste conjugial love and therefore of its delights.  But this sense in our sex appears, continues, remains, and rises in the measure that our husbands love us for our wisdom and judgment, and in the measure that we love them in return for the same qualities in them. (CL 155r.4)

Their husbands add, “We have [a sense of conjugial love] in general, but not in particular.  We have a general sense of bliss, of delight, and of pleasant contentment, owing to the particular sensations of these in our wives.  And this general sense, which we have from them, is like a peaceful serenity” (CL 155r.4).  These are striking at the core of the issue, which is that men are the intellect and women the will of the human race.  Although both have a will and understanding, in a man these are both faculties of the intellect, in a woman they are both faculties of the will.  Therefore man can only see love by means of truth and “no one can see the endless varieties of this love in any light of the understanding, even if elevated, unless he first knows what that love is like in its true essence and perfect state, thus what it was like when, together with life, it was bestowed on mankind by God” (CL 57).  The reason that “no one has traced the origin of this love from this source before [is] because no one has seen that there is any union between good and truth.  No one has seen it, moreover, because goodness is not visible to the sight of the understanding as truth is, and therefore knowledge of it has remained hidden and eluded investigation” (CL 83).  Through the decline of wisdom in the human race, people came to believe “that a person is intelligent and wise and thus truly human according to the truths that he thinks, speaks, writes, and believes, and not at the same time according to his goodness” (CL 83).  This is simply not the case, for “speech and action that spring from thought … do not spring from thought, but from love acting through thought” (CL 36).  The fact is everything that men see is in the light of the understanding, and everything that women see is in the light of the will.  Therefore, although men, from the light of the understanding, cannot see love except as it evidences itself in wisdom; women can see love, and in fact only see love from the heat of the will.  Therefore, when a man says he sees and a woman says she sees, although they may be regarding the same phenomenon, they are not witnessing it in the same fashion.  However, more will be said on this topic in Chapter 2, in the section titled “Recognition.”

Beauty In Women

Love alone is not the origin of beauty, neither is wisdom alone, but the origin is a union of love and wisdom – a union of love with the wisdom in a youth, and a union of wisdom with its love in a maiden.  For a maiden does not love wisdom in herself but in a young man, and on that account sees him as beautiful; and when the young man sees this in a young woman, he then sees her as beautiful.  Therefore love through wisdom creates beauty, and wisdom from love receives it. (CL 384, see also DLW 358) From this it is clear that there is beauty to be seen in both genders.  However, the quality of beauty is different in men than in women.

With women, there are two kinds of beauty:

a natural beauty having to do with their face and figure, and the other a spiritual beauty having to do with their love and demeanor … these two kinds of beauty are very often separated in the natural world, but … they are always united in the spiritual world; for outward beauty in the spiritual world is an expression of a person’s love and demeanor.  It frequently happens after death therefore that homely women become beautiful, and beautiful women homely.(CL 330)

This last phenomenon is confirmed by the fact that in heaven “the wives are even more beautiful, appearing as veritable pictures of heavenly love, and their husbands as pictures of heavenly wisdom” (CL 355).  And so it is certain that all in heaven are beautiful.

Perhaps the more challenging aspect of beauty is found in the question, “what should be the relationship of a woman to her beauty?”  For it is certain that:

every woman wishes to seem beautiful in appearance and beautiful in demeanor, because she is from birth the form of an affection of love and this affection is expressed in beauty.  Therefore a woman who does not wish to be beautiful is not a woman who wishes to love and be loved, and so is not truly a woman. (CL 330)

The answer to this question is that women should “love their beauty and its ornamentation, provided it is for the sake of their husbands and inspired by them” (CL 330).  Although before marriage it is proper for women to wish to be beautiful to men in general:

if a woman after marriage wishes to seem beautiful in the same way as before, she loves men in general and not her husband.  For a woman who loves herself on account of her beauty … continually wishes to have her beauty tasted …  It is patent that such a woman has a love for the opposite sex in general and not a love for just one. (CL 330)

It is clear from this that a woman’s chastity is either supported or compromised by her use of beauty.  Therefore, women should guard against vanity, as it obstructs their primary use of bringing conjugial love to a man.

Warnings To Women

Warnings to women are similar to the warnings given to men in that they center around shunning evils as sins and doing good with the acknowledgment that it comes from God.  However, they differ in the fact that, in general, women have within them from creation a perception of love that does not require instruction in this way.  However, so that the struggle of women in marriage might be seen more clearly, several aspects of that struggle will now be discussed.

The first warning to women is that they need to trust their inner dictates (Cf. CL 22, 44).  Because their wisdom is born with them from creation and stems from the conjugial love present in them, women can sense “by native instinct [when to] withdraw her inner affections into the secret chambers of her mind” (CL 274).  Therefore, until a women senses a true wisdom developing in her husband, it would serve her well to trust herself on this matter.

Another case in which women need to trust themselves is the case of:

the man himself who takes a mistress [and] does not see that it is abhorrent, because with the closing of heaven comes spiritual insanity.  But a chaste wife sees it clearly, because she is the embodiment of conjugial love, and this love is revolted by such an action.  For that reason, too, many of them subsequently refuse physical union with their husbands, as something that would contaminate their chastity by a contagious communication of the lust clinging to the husbands from their harlots. (CL 464)

This kind of reaction on the part of a wife stems from her conjugial chastity.  Therefore, if a woman feels that her marriage is better served by refusing a physical relationship with her husband until he has repented of his insanity, she should be confident, regardless of his ratiocinations, of her position.

Another warning to women, is that they should, if at all possible, guard their virginity.  The female sex differs from the male sex in that it does not experience a beginning of conjugial love in lust from an active arousal.  Therefore it is not healthy for them to enter into love between the sexes in act before marriage (CL 98).  The reason for this is that:

conjugial love in women is coupled with their virginity.  From it comes the chastity, purity and sanctity of that love.  Consequently, for a woman to promise and commit her virginity to some man is to give a token that she will love him to eternity.  Because of that a virgin cannot with any rational assent pledge it except with the promise of a conjugial covenant.  It is also the crown of her honor.  Therefore to snatch it away without a covenant of marriage and afterwards reject her is to make a trollop of some virgin who might have become a chaste bride and wife, or to cheat some other man, either of which is hurtful.  Accordingly, if anyone takes a virgin as his courtesan, he may indeed cohabit with her and so introduce her into the friendship of love, but still with the constant intention of making her his wife if she is not unfaithful. (CL 460, see also AC 828)

This has often been seen as a hard teaching.  However, it cannot be denied if women are to be valued, protected, and loved.  There are few, if any, women who inwardly regard the loss of virginity outside of marriage as a good thing, a preferable thing, or even an acceptable thing.  Therefore, this warning, in some sense is simply a reiteration of the previous one – women need to trust their inner perception from love.  This is not to say that there is no return path for those who have made mistakes.  However, if women can trust themselves enough to avoid situations in which they may lose their virginity there will be far fewer obstacles to a truly conjunctive marriage for them.

A third warning to women, is to beware of the merely natural (Cf. AC 831).  In reality, this is a warning to either gender.  However, because women are the vehicle for conjugial love, and therefore all life, it is of particular importance for them. The conjugial atmosphere emanating from God:

is received directly by the female sex and indirectly by the male sex, and because it is received in accordance with particular forms, it follows that, although in its origin this atmosphere is holy, in its recipients it can be turned into an atmosphere that is not holy, even indeed into one that is opposite in character.    CL 225, see also CL 294

Therefore, women need to ensure that they are serving as good vessels for conjugial love, maintaining its chastity, encouraging its wisdom in their husbands, and shunning activities that oppose it.

Perhaps the single most important warning to women is to beware of feminine power and domination between partners.  It is very often the case that “the dispute over who has what power arises from the fact that men insist on having superiority in all matters affecting the household just because they are men, leaving women in a position of inferiority just because they are women” (CL 291).  This type of power struggle comes from an “ignorance of true conjugial love and [a] lack of any perception or sensation of the blessings of that love” (CL 291).  When two partners come into a struggle for mastery no one wins.  For if men obtain mastery women are subject to male chauvinism and its attendant prejudice.  If women obtain mastery, all that is left is an appearance of conjugial love, an external appearance of companionship which is internally devoid of life (CL 291).  Both of these cases form “hellish marriages in the world in which the partners are inwardly bitter enemies and yet outwardly seem like the closest of friends” (CL 292).

Although either partner could struggle with the evil of love of dominion from the love of self, there is a particular warning to women against seeking dominion in marriage because:

women deeply conceal a knowledge within them by which they know how to skillfully tame men, if they wish, and make them subject to their command … On the part of ill-bred wives, this is accomplished by scoldings and periodic commendations; in some cases by continually hard and unpleasant looks, and in similar cases by other tactics.  On the part of well-bred wives, however, it is accomplished by persistent and incessant pressings of requests, and by stubbornly resisting and opposing their husbands if they suffer hardships on their account, insisting on their right of equality by law and making themselves brazenly obstinate because of it. (CL 292)

The fact is, women are able to gain control of men because “a man acts in accord with his intellect and a woman in accord with her will; and the will can be stubborn, but not the intellect” (CL 292)  Therefore women should be particularly wary of any inclination to stubbornness.  It is the nature of a wife to lead the internal of her husband from love, and secretly moderate his affections so that they two can be conjoined in wisdom and judgment.  However, it is stubbornness when a women is unwilling to moderated by the rational sight of truth presented by her husband.

Resisting the urge to dominate becomes particularly challenging when men are in states of coldness with respect to marriage, or in states of obscurity with respect to wisdom (which in many cases are one and the same).  However, women need to remember that it is their conjugial love from the Lord that actually gives life to a man’s wisdom.  Therefore, although in externals, as was seen earlier, a women may use a wide varieties of tactics to awaken in men a desire to pursue wisdom and shun insanity; let women beware of crossing that fine line between moderation and manipulation.

A fifth warning to women, is to remember the difference between men and women in times of cold.  At times both partners may fall back on simulating their part of the conjugial relationship.  However, as was seen previously, with men this is evidence of an interior cold, whereas “simulations on the part of wives are not the same as simulations on the part of men.  Even if they appear similar to them, they are expressions of real love, because women are born forms of love for the understanding of men.  They accept their husbands’ displays of favor graciously, therefore, if not in words, still in heart” (CL 285).

A sixth warning to women is to remember what it is that women receive from men.  An example which brings these things to light is the that of a widow.  For:

the state of a widow is harder than the state of a widower.  The reasons are external and internal.  The external reasons are plain for anyone to see; as for instance: 1. A widow cannot provide the necessities of life for herself and her household as a man can, or having acquired them, manage them as she did formerly with her husband’s help and in partnership with him. 2. Nor can she properly protect herself and her household; for in their married life her husband was her protection and so to speak her good right arm; and even when she had to protect herself, still she relied on her husband. 3. By herself she is without counsel in such matters as require an inner wisdom and its consequent judgment. 4. A widow has no one receiving the love she has as a woman; thus she is in a state alien to the state innate in her and entered into by marriage.  (CL 325)

From a more internal perspective it may be seen that:

good cannot provide or manage anything except by means of truth; that good cannot protect itself either except by means of truth, accordingly that truth is the protection and so to speak the good right arm of good; and that good without truth is without counsel, because it has its counsel, wisdom and judgment by means of truth. Now because a man from creation is a form of truth, and a wife from creation a form of its accompanying good, or to say the same thing, because a man from creation is a form of understanding, and a wife from creation a form of its accompanying love, it is apparent that the external or natural circumstances which make the widowhood of a woman harder take their origin from internal or spiritual circumstances.           CL 325

From this example it may be seen that women, being forms of good, receive good service from men, who are forms of truth.  Therefore, women, like men, need to be wary of feeling that life is completely their own and that they do not need a partner.  For the simple fact is that neither man nor woman left to themselves is complete without the other.  This will be further explored in the section “Why Marry?”.

Women In Relation To Men

In relation to men, “a wife in form is the good of her husband’s truth, and he the truth of his wife’s goodness” (CL 242, see also CL 284, 293).  This stems from the fact that “love cannot help but love and unite itself in order to be loved in return, this being the very essence and life of love.  And women are born forms of love, while men – with whom they unite themselves in order to be loved in return – are receivers” (CL 160).  Therefore, “on account of and for the sake of that union with her mate, a woman is born a form of love for a man, and she becomes more and more a form of love for him by marriage, because her love then continually devotes its thoughts to joining her husband to her.” (CL 173).

The underlying fact that “wives are vessels receptive of and sensitive to [conjugial] delights, because they are born forms of love, and all delights have to do with love” (CL 155r.3) explains why it is that “in wives, conjugial delights take their rise from no other source than their willing to be united with their husbands, as good is united with truth in a marriage of these on the plane of the spirit” (CL 198).  In fact, even in the spiritual world, “the love of wisdom that wives have in heaven knows no greater pleasure than to receive [the truths of wisdom from their husbands] as though in a womb, and thus to become pregnant with them, carry them, and give them birth” (CL 115.5). From these spiritual conceptions, affections are born.  For “affections are simply the offspring of love, and they form the will, molding it and composing it.  In men, however, these affections reside in the intellect, whereas in women they reside in the will” (CL 197).  This sheds light on the interactions of a husband and wife on this earth as well, for people are actually spirits clothed in bodies (HH 453).  Therefore, real conjunction is found between a husband and wife when they are focused not simply on the production of natural offspring, but on the development of spiritual offspring as well.

Another facet of the interaction of women with men is that:

young women in heaven, just as on earth, from an innate discretion conceal their inclinations towards marriage, the young men there do not know otherwise than that they inspire feelings of love in the young women, and this also appears to them to be so because of their masculine urge.  However, even this urge in them is caused by an influx of love emanating from the fair sex.(CL 187, see also CL 223)

It was seen previously that men experience this external arousal from the power of insemination.  This masculine urge constitutes an external inclination to marriage.  The reason that women at first conceal their inclinations towards marriage is to the end that men may move from this external inclination to marriage to an internal one.  In fact, throughout a marriage the wife is continually bringing into herself the wisdom of her husband, as was spoken of before, and “the prudence needed to accomplish it is instinctive in women from creation, thus from birth, for reasons that are necessary in building conjugial love, friendship and trust, so that the two may have bliss in living together and happiness of life” (CL 194).  And so it is clear that because all people begin as external people, women must at first trust their innate discretion and conceal matters relating to conjugial love until their men come into a place of wisdom that is receptive to it.

In thinking about the role of a woman in marriage, it is essential to remember the following:

Conjugial love has its seat in chaste wives, but their love depends on their husbands.  The reason is that wives are born forms of love, and it is therefore innate in them to wish to be one with their husbands.  They also continue to feed their love with this thought of their will.  Consequently to turn away from their effort to unite themselves with their husbands would be to turn away from their very natures.  It is different with husbands.  Because they are not born forms of love, but are receivers of that love from their wives, therefore to the degree that they receive it, to that degree their wives enter into them with their love.  But to the degree they do not receive it, their wives stand outside with their love and wait.  This is what happens, however, in the case of chaste wives.  It is otherwise in the case of unchaste ones. (CL 216r)

Women are limited by men.  This is because the atmosphere of the marriage of good and truth, or the conjugial atmosphere:

is received by the female sex and communicated through it to the male sex.  The male sex does not have any conjugial love inherent in it, but conjugial love is inherent only in the female sex and is transmitted to the male sex from it … The masculine form is an intellect-oriented one and the feminine form a will-oriented one; and an intellect-oriented form does not have the capacity to develop a conjugial warmth on its own, but can do so only from the associated warmth of another in whom this has been implanted from creation.  Consequently the masculine form cannot receive conjugial love except by having adjoined to it the will-oriented form of a woman, because this is at the same time a form of love. CL 223

This is particularly interesting when it is considered in light of the general teaching that “a person’s character is shaped by his will, and not by his intellect, since love easily carries away the understanding into seeing things its way and becoming its servant … for the affection of the will governs a person’s inner self, while the thought of the intellect governs his outer one” (CL 269, see also CL 230, 400).  From this it is clear that because “the will is the recipient vessel of love, and the understanding the recipient vessel of wisdom” (CL 270) and “a husband lives in the chamber of the intellect, and a wife lives in the chamber of the will” (CL 270) therefore a wife, from her reception of the conjugial sphere works internally to bring the couple into spiritual life, whereas the husband’s work in this regard is more external.  However, the limiting factor in the conjugial relationship would appear to be primarily the husband (assuming the wife is chaste) and his acceptance of love from his wife by means of wisdom.

The role of a good woman in marriage is best described by seven angel wives, who explain that,

Every chaste wife loves her husband, even a husband who is unchaste; but because wisdom is the only quality that receives her love, therefore a wife spends every effort to turn his insanity into wisdom, at least to the point that he does not desire any other women but her.  This she accomplishes in a thousand ways, taking especial care that none of these ways be detected by her husband; for she well knows that love cannot be compelled, but is subtly infused in a state of freedom.  For that reason it is granted to women to discern from sight, hearing and touch their husbands’ every state of mind, while it is not granted to men conversely to discern any of their wives’ states of mind. A chaste wife can look at her husband with a stern expression, speak to him in a sharp voice, and even be angry at him and fight with him, and yet at the same time in her heart cherish a gentle and tender love for him.  The object, however, of these expressions of anger and concealments of love is wisdom and a consequent reception of love on the part of her husband, as is clearly apparent from how quickly she can be placated.  Wives furthermore have such ways of concealing the love implanted in their heart and marrows in order by these means to keep a man’s coldness with respect to marriage from breaking out in him and extinguishing even the fire of his licentious heat, the result of which would be to turn him from green wood into a dry stick.  CL 294 (see also CL 285, 293, 353)

From this it is clear that the reestablishment of conjugial love on earth will be by means of women gently working with their husbands.  However, it is up to husbands to shun lascivious and licentious things so that their internal cold towards marriage will be removed by the Lord and wisdom inserted in its place.

When men and women work in concert with each other to become a spiritual being, their effectiveness is greatly increased.  The order intended from creation is that the masculine and the feminine complement each other in every respect, challenging and supporting one another in their development – the man from a higher light, the woman from a higher heat.  This kind of conjugial relationship between husband and wife is described by an angel in the following manner:

A wife acquires from her husband’s wisdom a love of it in her, and from his wife’s love of wisdom a husband acquires wisdom in him.  Indeed, a wife is actually transformed into an embodiment of love for her husband’s wisdom, which is accomplished by her receptions of the propagations of his soul with delight – a delight arising from her willing to be an embodiment of love for her husband’s wisdom.  From being a maiden she thus becomes his wife and a likeness of him.  As a result, too, love with its inmost friendship constantly increases in the wife, and wisdom with its happiness in the husband, and this to eternity.  This is the state of angels in heaven. (CL 355, see also CL 198)

Let this serve as the end in view to all who seek wisdom and its attendant love, which is the life of heaven.

Wisdom, Or Is It Love, In Women?

One of the most challenging topics to explore is that of the wisdom of women.  The reason for this difficulty is described by the wives sitting in a rose garden in heaven:

Dear friend, you do not know the wisdom and prudence of wives, because they hide it altogether from men and keep it hidden precisely in order to be loved by them.  For every man who is not spiritually rational and moral but only naturally so possesses a coldness towards his wife, such a coldness being inherent in him in his inmost elements.  This coldness a wise and prudent wife acutely and keenly notices, and she then conceals her conjugial love, withdrawing into her heart so much of it and hiding it there so deeply that not the least bit of it appears in her face, her tone of voice, or gesture.  She does this, because to the extent her love appears, to that extent a man’s coldness with respect to marriage pours forth from the inmost elements of his mind where it resides and descends into its outmost expressions, producing a total frigidity in the body and an urge to separate himself therefore from the bed and bedroom. (CL 294)

In this age of iron mixed with clay men are cold to conjugial love and therefore deny themselves access to the wisdom of their wives.  This is because women are wisdom’s accompanying love, thought’s accompanying affection, and intellect’s accompanying will (CL 175) and so when they hide these their wisdom is veiled as well.  This is seen in the fact that women do not speak from intellectual wisdom “but in gatherings of men where matters like this are being discussed, they keep silent and only listen.  Nevertheless, wives still have these things in them inwardly, as is apparent from the fact that they do listen, inwardly recognizing and concurring with those things which they hear and have heard from their husbands” (CL 165).  In this passage it is clear that women approach exchanges of knowledge more for the sake of connection with other people and less for the sake of knowledge.  Therefore, when they perceive that entering into the conversation would not connect them with someone, they are content to listen and affirm what is right, in what the men are saying.  This is but one example of why men have not seen what wisdom is in women.

It was mentioned earlier that the fact that men are forms of intellect or understanding does not infer a lower IQ on the part of women.  This is confirmed in that “the intelligence of women is by nature modest, gracious, peaceable, compliant, soft and gentle, while the intelligence of men is by nature critical, rough, resistant, argumentative, and given to intemperance” (CL 218).  However, it should be seen that this difference in quality stems from the fact that intelligence is not the same in the two genders.  Where men have a rational sight from higher light, women have a perception of love from a higher warmth.

This perception is a wisdom that the wife has.  A man is not capable of it, neither is a wife capable of her husband’s intellectual wisdom.  This follows from the difference that exists between masculinity and femininity.  It is masculine to perceive from the intellect, and feminine to perceive from love.  Moreover, the intellect also perceives those sorts of matters which transcend the body and the world – it  being the nature of intellectual and spiritual sight to move in that direction – while love does not perceive beyond what it feels.  When it does, its perception draws on its union with the intellect of a man, a union established from creation.  For the intellect has to do with light, and love with warmth, and concerns that are matters of light are seen, whereas concerns that are matters of warmth are felt.  It is apparent from this that, because of the universal difference which exists between masculinity and femininity, a husband is not capable of his wife’s wisdom, nor is a wife capable of her husband’s wisdom.  Women are not even capable of a man’s moral wisdom to the extent that it springs from his intellectual wisdom. (CL 168)

With respect to moral wisdom

a wife’s union with men’s moral wisdom exists outwardly, because the virtues of this wisdom are akin for the most part to similar virtues in women, and they spring from the husband’s intellectual will, with which the wife’s will unites and forms a marriage.  And because a wife recognizes these virtues in her husband better than he recognizes them in himself, we say that a wife’s union with them exists outwardly. (CL 165)

From this it is clear that women have perception from love, which appears in the external very similar to the rational sight of truth.  This appearance convinces some people that women can see truth from a higher light. However:

they have been persuaded of this opinion by what some educated female poets have written.  But when the works of these female poets were examined in their presence in the spiritual world, they were found to be works, not of judgment and wisdom, but of cleverness and a facility in the use of language.  And works which result from these two gifts, because of the elegance and skill in the way the words are put together, appear as though they were lofty and intelligent – but only to people who take any kind of cleverness and call it wisdom. (CL 175)

The warning here is clearly against obscuring the internal distinction between masculine and feminine wisdom.  Masculine wisdom is a wisdom from truth.  Feminine wisdom is a wisdom from good.  Too often this passage has been interpreted to mean that women do not have intelligence or wisdom.  This is simply not the case.  Rather, it is a fact that just as men have an intellect and will both of which reside in their intellect – women have an intellect and will both of which reside in their will.  There are strengths and weaknesses to both genders because they were designed from creation to be joined into one.  Therefore the weaknesses of one are supported by the strengths of the other.  Beware of thinking of them as if they are in competition with each other.  For this sort of thinking arises from hell.

A woman’s wisdom comes from a perception of love from a higher warmth, by which is meant “conjugial love, because spiritual warmth, which emanates from the sun of that world, in its essence is love, and in women is love that unites itself with the intelligence and wisdom in men” (CL 188).   Therefore, “the elevation into a higher warmth in women is an elevation into a more and more chaste and pure conjugial love, and this continually towards the conjugial ideal which from creation is innate in their inmost beings” (CL 188).  This is the case with good women.  The challenge here lies in the fact that women’s judgment and wisdom is directly related to their quality of life.  This is a strength if they are pursuing chastity and are supported in this pursuit by a good husband.  It can be a weakness if they get themselves into evils which compromise their ability to see the truth.  However, it is a fundamental truth that conjugial love cannot be utterly destroyed in any woman, because it constitutes her very nature.  Rather, their decisions may cause it to be intercepted in its reception.  More on this will be seen later.

Perhaps the best description of feminine wisdom is found in the recounting of a conversation that Emanuel Swedenborg had with angel wives in heaven.  Swedenborg asked the wives to reveal something concerning conjugial love.  They replied that these were secrets, some of which could not be understood by the intellect of men.  They continued their discussion saying,

You men vaunt yourselves over us on account of your wisdom, but we do not vaunt ourselves over you on account of ours – even though our wisdom is superior to yours because it enters into your inclinations and affections and sees, perceives and feels them.  You know nothing at all about the inclinations and affections of your love, and this despite the fact that it is because of them and in accordance with them that your intellect thinks, consequently that it is because of them and in accordance with them that you have your wisdom.  Yet wives know these things in their husbands so well that they see them in their husband’s faces and hear them in the intonations of the speech of their mouth – indeed so well that they feel them with the touch of their hands on their husbands’ breasts, arms and cheeks.  But from a zealous love for your happiness and at the same time our own, we pretend as if we do not know these things, while at the same time moderating them so discreetly that whatever our husbands’ wish, pleasure or will, we accede to it by allowing and enduring it, and only redirecting it when possible, but never compelling. (CL 208)

They explain that this wisdom is implanted in women:

from creation and so from birth.  Our husbands liken it to an instinct, but we say it comes of Divine providence, in order that men may be made happy through their wives.  Our husbands have told us that it is the Lord’s will that the masculine sex act in freedom in accord with reason; and since a man’s freedom involves his inclinations and affections, therefore the Lord Himself moderates his freedom from within, and through his wife from without, and so forms the man and his wife together into an angel of heaven.  Besides, if love is compelled, its fundamental nature changes and it becomes no longer the same love … We are moved to this – that is, to a discreet moderation of the inclinations and affections of our husbands, so discreet that it seems to them that they act in freedom in accord with their own reason – because we feel delight from their love, and we love nothing more than for them to feel delight from our feelings of delight.  But if these feelings become matters of indifference in them, they also begin to fade in us. (CL 208)

Therefore

from these few illustrations you can see that we know better than men whether all is well with them or not.  If they are cold to their wives, all is not well with them, but if they are warm to their wives it is.  Wives are therefore continually turning over in their minds ways of inducing their men to be warm to them and not cold, and they do this with a keenness of perception incomprehensible to men. (CL 208)

There are many things to be seen in this passage:

• Conjugial love transcends masculine understanding
• Feminine wisdom, from this love, is superior to masculine wisdom
• Feminine wisdom perceives inclinations and affections, or what is the same, people’s desires and willingness to change because of something.
• Masculine wisdom does not see inclinations or affections
• Women conceal their wisdom from men because men are inwardly cold toward marriage
• Whereas masculine wisdom is acquired, feminine wisdom is inborn
• Feminine wisdom is driven by the sensation of delight
• Men should be wary of allowing their feeling of delight in their wife’s delight to fade, for this lessens a wife’s wisdom as she can then no longer feel the state of her husband.

The work Conjugial Love was written to reveal such truths as these so that men would once again look to their wives for love.  Men need to read and reflect on the truths contained in this work and alter their interactions with women accordingly, especially because women may not support these truths until men do.  This is seen at the end of the previous passage when the angel wives say “ Perhaps you will expose to men the secrets you have heard.” And Swedenborg replies, “That is my intention, what harm will it do?”  The wives then tell him:

Disclose them if you wish.  We are not unacquainted with the power of persuasion possessed by wives.  Indeed, they will say to their husbands, ‘The man is fooling.  They are fictions.  He is trying to amuse with appearances and the usual nonsense typical of men.  Do not believe him; believe us.  We know that you are the lovers and we your humble servants. (CL 208_

From this it is clear that women may not be free to confirm the truths about the masculine, the feminine, and marriage until men are actively pursuing a knowledge of them and a life according to them.  Remember, this passage was written at the height of the age of iron mixed with clay.  Those wives who will persuade their husbands that they are the lovers and that the teachings of Conjugial Love are but fictions, were wives who were driven to this by the coldness toward marriage in their husbands.  For in a true marriage, one that is looking to the Lord, the man acknowledges that he is a receiver of love from his wife.  In this case the wife would acknowledge that just as she is in a higher heat than her husband, he is in a higher light than her.  Therefore, decisions are to be made by couples from their collective wisdom and judgment, the wife lending her perception from love, and the husband his rational sight of truth.

Jealousy In Men

In common thought jealousy is generally seen at one of two extremes – either it is an unhealthy behavior of a possessive partner, or it is the only true evidence of love.  Both of these perceptions of jealousy are wrong, for with men “whether they feel any love or not, the vainglory of their honor induces, heightens, and exacerbates jealousness” (CL 378).  In actuality, the seat of jealousness:

is in the intellect of a man who receives his partner’s love and loves her in return, and that its quality there is according to his wisdom …  Jealousness has something in common with esteem, which is also present in conjugial love; for anyone who loves his partner also esteems her … The reason … is that conjugial love protects itself through the intellect, as good protects itself through truth.  Thus a wife protects those concerns which she has in common with a man through her husband.  And for that reason zeal is implanted in men, and through men and on account of men in women. (CL 372)

Essentially, men need to pursue real wisdom of life so that they can receive conjugial love from their wife and thereby establish a zeal for its protection in their minds.  This sometimes is seen as simply a protective instinct, but in good men it arises from a love of and esteem for their wives and therefore a desire to protect their body, mind, and spirit from harm.  The ideals of chivalry could be seen as the remaining externals of masculine wisdom regarding marriage, when the internals had been lost.  The point is not to restore the externals (chivalry and simple protection) apart from the internals (wisdom of life and love for your wife), but to reestablish the internals of wisdom and love so that the externals will come by correspondence with real states of life.

The Pursuit Of Masculinity

From everything that has been said concerning the masculine it is clear that “it is the intellect which makes the man and also his masculinity; consequently, that according as his intellect is elevated, so does he become a human man and also a manly man” (CL 446, see also CL 432, 433).  Therefore, let all men respect true masculinity and support each other in pursuing true wisdom.

What It Is To Be A Woman

Women are voluntary, or in other words “a female is born will-oriented [or voluntary]” (CL 33).  This is the case because “good of truth or good from truth exists in the female and is the essence of femininity” (CL 61).  The voluntary is more complicated in its nature than the intellectual man because a woman “is born with a love for joining herself to [the affection for knowing, understanding and becoming wise] in the male” (CL 33).  This means that women are born “to become a form of will that loves the understanding of the male” (CL 159, see also CL 33, 55.6, 187, 218).  What is interesting is that although this “affection for wisdom is beauty itself” (CL 56.3) the fact that the female disposition is “to love knowledge, intelligence and wisdom – though not in herself but in a man – and for that reason to love a man” (CL 91) is often taken to mean that women are not as valuable as men.  And yet, the Heavenly Doctrines explicitly warn of thinking such things as “what is woman? Is she not born subject to a man’s will, and born to serve and not to rule?” (CL 77.4).  The fact that “the female was created to become a form of love for the male on account of his wisdom, thus in accordance with that wisdom” (CL 66) and therefore “in response to the intellectual orientation in the male … to be a lover of the wisdom in a man, because she was formed by means of his wisdom” (CL 91) does not make women of less importance or value than men.   On the contrary, women share an equal role with men in the creation and maintenance of the human race and in the spiritual life of a couple.

It was seen above that men’s thoughts can be separated from their affections.  And further, that this is their strength because it affords them the opportunity of seeing things in a higher light.  In the case of a woman her thoughts are not separated from her affections (CL 169).  This is her strength, for it allows women to “have an interior perception of love, while men have only a more superficial perception” (CL 47r).  The will is such that it “does not think about goodness and truth but loves them and does them” (CL 220).  Where men love the pursuit of goodness and truth, women love the good and truth themselves.  This arises from the fact that “conjugial love is implanted in every woman from creation” (CL 409).  This must not be underestimated, for it will be seen that conjugial love is the parent of all loves, including love to the Lord and love of the neighbor.  Therefore, life itself comes to the human race by means of women and is brought into forms by means of men.

What Women Do

It was mentioned previously that “A husband has duties appropriate to him, and a wife duties appropriate to her, and a wife cannot enter into duties appropriate to her husband or a husband into duties appropriate to his wife and perform them properly” (CL 174).  It was seen that men approach occupations from their strength, the intellect.  And so by contrast it may be seen that women approach occupations from their strength, the will.  Where this becomes controversial is when this is confined to mean that “female employments have to do with things that are works of the hands and are called sewing, needlework, and other names, which serve for decoration, for her personal adornment, and for enhancing her beauty” (CL 91).  However, the feminine approach to occupations is best described as focusing on “various tasks called domestic, which complement the tasks of men (which, as we said, are called occupational).  Women do these things out of an inclination toward marriage, in order to become wives and so one with their husbands” (CL 91).  In general “duties by which wives especially unite themselves with their husbands are duties involved in the upbringing of little children of both sexes, and of girls to the age when they are given in marriage” (CL 174, see also TCR 431).  However, it may be seen that many employments can be approached from the perception of love, which provides women with a greater ability to work in the medium of beauty, weave personal relationships, or embroider social networks, to give a few examples.

There is one real concern with how women are employed:

Many people believe that women can perform the duties of men if only they are introduced into them from early age in the way that boys are.  However, women can be introduced into the exercise of these duties, but not into the judgment on which the proper performance of these duties inwardly depends.  Therefore, those women who are introduced into the duties of men, in matters of judgment are bound to go to men for advice; and then, from the men’s recommendations, if they are their own mistresses, they choose what accords with their love. (CL 175)

Men have judgment and wisdom from a higher light of truth. Women have judgment and wisdom from a higher warmth of love.  In the optimized workplace, therefore, men would be employed in making judgments that require such things as a sight of the future state of a system or the evaluation of performance dynamics.  Women, on the other hand, would complement these decisions with judgments that require such things as a sense of the quality of the workplace environment or the evaluation of management techniques.

One final point about the employment of women – the most important job that a woman can have is that of wife and mother.  Just as it is a man’s first responsibility to love the Lord and the things of His church so that he can bring these to his wife, it is a woman’s first responsibility to be a wife and mother, acting as the conduit for conjugial love, which is all love, into the human race.  Just as men should not allow their employment to become an obstruction to their role as husband and father and the pursuit of wisdom in matters of the church; women should not allow the opportunity of employment outside of the home to interfere with their role as wife and mother.

Employment is simply a tool.  It can be used well or poorly by men and women.  The essential point to bear in mind – whether you are masculine or feminine – when making choices about employment, is to choose employment which enhances your spiritual responsibilities, not employment which hinders them.

Warnings To Men

In the marriage relationship, there are many rather subtle things that a good husband needs to be aware of.

The first of these is described by angel wives in this fashion:

No wife loves her husband on account of his appearance, but on account of the intelligence he displays in his occupation and conduct.  Be advised, therefore, that a wife unites herself with a man’s intelligence, and thus with the man.  So then, if a man loves himself on account of his intelligence, he draws it back from his wife to himself, which results in disunion instead of union.  Furthermore, to love one’s own intelligence is to look to oneself for wisdom, which is to be irrational; consequently it is to love one’s own irrationality. (CL 331)

This is further described by the angel wives in their statement that:

Women come by birth into a love for the intelligence of men.  Consequently if men themselves love their own intelligence, their intelligence cannot be united with its proper true love which is found in a wife; and if a man’s intelligence is not united with its proper true love which is found in a wife, his intelligence becomes irrational as a result of conceit, and conjugial love in him turns cold.  Now what woman can unite her love to a love that is cold?  And what man can unite the irrationality of his conceit to a love for intelligence?  (CL 331)

When men believe themselves to be the lovers and women but receivers of love, it is a step away from conjunction.  When a man believes that his judgment and wisdom from a rational sight of truth have precedence over his wife’s judgment and wisdom from a perception of love, it is a step away from conjunction.  When a man intimates that his wife is not as smart as he is, it is a step away from conjunction.  Let men be warned of their own foolish pride.  It is essential to masculinity that men pursue wisdom, but the moment that the pursuit draws its life from the man himself instead of from a love of useful service, at that moment he may be sure that his pride is getting the better of him.

A second warning lies in the fact that “a chaste wife rarely if ever fails to love her husband, but what fails is her being loved by her husband in return … This failure is attributable to a lack of elevation in his wisdom, which alone receives the love of a wife” (CL 200) This means that “wives wish to be wives not just in name but in fact, and because this is achieved by a closer and closer tie with their husbands, they therefore love the bonds of marriage from the time its covenant is established, and this the more as they are loved in return by their husbands, or in other words, the more their husbands love these bonds” (CL 217). In fact, “ordinariness from being continually allowed is an incidental reason for coldness because it develops as an additional one in people who think of marriage and of their wives in a lascivious manner.  Not, however, in those who think reverently of marriage and protectively of their wives” (CL 256).  It is essential to true masculinity that a man love his wife and only his wife.  The opportunity to share eternity with his chosen partner – which is represented by the legal, social, and spiritual covenant entered into in marriage – is, truly, a beautiful gift to be shared by the couple.  However, if a husband falls prey to thinking of his wife lasciviously, maybe even as a way of resurrecting something of warmth between them, he will discover that true conjunction is lacking.  Husbands should watch, therefore, that they do not seek external gratification as a means of restoring internal connection.  Rather, they should seek to do what they understand to be loving, looking to the best interests of their wife and submitting themselves to the teaching of the Word, and so love and support the covenant of marriage.

A third warning to husbands is that “husbands are cold to their wives whenever they entertain vain thoughts against the Lord and the church.  They are cold whenever they pride themselves because of their own intelligence.  They are cold whenever they look upon other women with lust.  They are cold whenever they are admonished by their wives on the subject of love” (CL 208). This is further related to the fact that:

Every man who is irrational in matters of the spirit is inmostly cold to his wife and inmostly warm toward harlots.  And because conjugial love and licentious love are opposed to each other, it follows that conjugial love becomes cold whenever licentious love is warm.  Then, when coldness reigns in a man, he cannot endure any feeling of love or even therefore any whisper of it from his wife.  That is why a wife so wisely and prudently conceals it; and to the extent she does this by denying and resisting, to that extent a wanton atmosphere flows in which revives and restores the man’s interest.  As a result the wife of a man like that does not experience any delights of the heart such as we do, but only physical gratifications, which on the man’s part have to be termed pleasures of insanity, because they are the pleasures of a licentious love. (CL 294)

The basic fact is that men are to pursue a knowledge of the Lord and matters having to do with his kingdom, which is the church.  This means that they are also to shun evils in themselves when they are made aware of them.  Too often men believe that if they are externally faithful to their wives it is enough.  This is simply not the case.  Although it is a good first step to refrain from adultery, true marriage is only achieved when the husband presses beyond this relatively external view and seeks to harvest spiritual wisdom, which is the wisdom of life.  Shunning adultery needs to extend beyond the physical act, to the lust of the will that would cause a man to feel warm towards a harlot.  It is true that the hells work in men from without, stimulating thoughts and arousing affections for unchaste things.  However, the Lord would have men focus everything they have on one woman, their wife, and thereby pursue actual wisdom.

A fourth warning is that:

The intellect is not as constant in its thoughts as the will is in its affections.  Indeed, it is carried upward one moment and downward the next, being sometimes in a state of serenity and clarity, sometimes in a state of turmoil and confusion, at times engaged in pleasant subjects, at other times caught up in unpleasant ones.  And because the mind in its workings is at the same time in the body, it follows that the body undergoes similar states … As a result, the husband sometimes draws away from conjugial love, sometimes toward it, and in the one state the abundance he has is withdrawn and in the other state restored.  For these reasons, determinations to intercourse must be left to the good pleasure of the husband.  That is why wives, from the wisdom innate in them, never admonish their husbands in regard to these matters.(CL 221)

Men should be aware of the fact that there is this alternation of states in regard to his reception of conjugial love from his wife.  If the couple knows this, it will be easier to weather the storms of life together, rather than letting this become an obstacle.  However, if the husband discovers that he spends more time in states of mind that are not receptive of conjugial love, this should serve as a means of reflection on the lifestyle choices he is making.

A fifth warning is that men should not be slaves.  This is seen in men when “they unconsciously contracted a terrific fear of their wives.  As a result they could not help but slavishly obey their wives’ wishes and do their bidding more submissively than the humblest of servants, so that they became practically spiritless weaklings” (CL 292) It is important for husbands to “leave to their wives their rights, and when they experience periodic states of coldness, not to regard their wives as inferior and treat them worse than they would servants” (CL 292).  Although this is stated in an extreme manner, it nevertheless reveals a basic truth – men and women are to balance each other, men from truth, and women from good.  Therefore if men do not exercise their judgment in giving form to their wives’ will, they will contract a manner of fear for their wives’ power that is not easily overcome.  It should be noted as well that if a woman is truly determined to conquer her husband, even a wise husband will find it hard to resist (see below in “Warnings to Women”).

A sixth warning lies in the fact that:

A man attracts and admits the type that accords with him and which is compatible with and matches the kind of person he is.  It can be seen in consequence that a man who does not love his wife receives this atmosphere from some other source than his wife.  Still, it is possible for it to be inspired by the wife as well, but without his knowledge, and at times when he feels warmer towards her. (CL 225)

Taken together with the fact that “pleasures of insanity appear in outward respects similar to the delights of wisdom, but not in their inner qualities … both chaste and unchaste men are capable of a similar wisdom in outward respects, but in its inner qualities their wisdom is entirely different” (CL 294) it is clear that men need to look within themselves to guard against the unchaste pleasure of receiving the atmosphere of love from women other than their wife.  Or, more simply, husbands love your wives and avoid attractions outside of marriage.  It is all too easy to become ensnared by rationalizations if this internal perspective is forgotten.

A seventh warning is that “it is primarily men who adopt simulations of conjugial love or outward shows of friendship for the sake of peace and tranquility at home” (CL 285). Men need to be aware of the fact that:

Because the intellect is a thinking faculty, it occupies itself with various matters which disturb, distract and trouble their spirit.  Consequently, if they were to find no peace at home, eventually their vital forces would languish, their inner life would sink almost into a state of death, and thus the health of both mind and body would be ruined.  Men’s minds would be assailed by the fears of these and many other dangers if they did not find havens of refuge at home with their wives to calm the turmoils of their intellect. (CL 285)

Similar in nature to the fourth warning, here it is evident that peace is to be found in a well running home.  When peace is not apparent it is a “tip-off” that something is not right.  Simulations of conjugial love are sometimes necessary, but in most cases should not be looked to as a permanent solution.  Men need to be wary of settling for simulations of conjugial love when, if they were to pursue the issue, they could discover the root of the difficulty and work together with their wives to resolve it.

In summary, the essential struggle for men is that:

It seems as though you love your wives, but you do not see that you are loved by your wives and so love them in return.  Nor do you see that your intelligence is the object of their love.  So then, if you yourselves love your intelligence in you, it becomes the object of your love; and love of oneself, because it will not endure an equal, never becomes conjugial love.  To the contrary, as long as it prevails it remains licentious.           CL 331

Let all men beware.

One final warning, when “…decisions to marry are delayed … and in the mean time the beginning of conjugial love is felt as lust, which in some cases goes off into love between the sexes in act … in such people, it is not given free rein further than is healthy.  This refers, however, to the male sex, because it suffers an enticement that actively arouses it” (CL 98.2).  As was mentioned previously, the power of insemination brings with it an actual arousal that is experienced in men, but not in women.  Men need to restrain themselves from following an external arousal, and instead do what is necessary to follow the internal inclination to marry with one of the opposite sex.  More will be said about this in the section on the preparation for marriage.

The Male Soul, Virility, And Insemination

It is the nature of the male soul that “nothing else is received by members of the male sex but truth and what relates to truth; and … this, in its descent into the body, is formed into seed or sperm (which is why seeds, spiritually interpreted, mean truths)” (CL 220).  It has been seen above that masculinity is defined as being intellectual, pursuing wisdom, and bringing an elevated vision of truth to the human race.  However, this passage adds an essential piece to the puzzle – men only receive truth.  Good can be attached to a man, but this requires a feminine influence.  The key to understanding the male soul is to see that it is the vehicle whereby truth comes to the human race.  This is why men are the source of seed for the propagation of the human race.

It is a basic tenet of faith that there is nothing in the natural world which does not draw its cause from the spiritual world (AC 2993, 3908, 6048, 9568; DLW 154, 251; HH 89; NJHD 261) and so it obviously follows that “a man’s power of insemination stems from a spiritual origin” (CL 220).  If this is taken together with the fact that nothing is received by men but truth it will be seen that “the power of insemination … has no other source than the intellect, for its source is truth there resulting from good” (CL 90.3).  Upon reflection it may be seen that “the wisdom that men have from the Lord knows no greater delight than to propagate its truths” (CL 115.5) and therefore the corresponding natural effect is the power of insemination in males.

The general case is this, “the sexual abundance men have is according to their love of propagating the truths of their wisdom and according to their love of performing useful services” (CL 220) for this provides a direct spiritual cause for the natural effect of insemination.  This is qualified by the fact that:

The ability or virtue called virility accompanies wisdom as this is animated by spiritual matters connected with the church, and that such an ability or virtue is inherent therefore in conjugial love.  Moreover, that such wisdom opens up the stream of this love from its wellspring in the soul, and thus invigorates and also blesses with continuance the life of the intellect, which is the essential life of masculinity. (CL 433)

The conclusion therefore is that:

A man does not lack virility as long as he loves his wife in a condition of intelligence; but he loses it if he does so in a condition of irrationality.  It is a mark of intelligence to love only one’s wife, and such a love does not lack virility; but it is a mark of irrationality to love in preference to one’s wife the opposite sex in general, and such a love does lack virility. (CL 331)

Therefore it can be seen that virility is necessarily a feature of the masculine soul and thereby the male body, which exists in direct correspondence to the state of intelligence and wisdom in the man.

It is important to note that this should not be taken as a means to judge a man’s spiritual state from external observation.  Instead it should be seen as an opportunity for acknowledging that all good things are from God, and that whatever it is that stands in the way of those gifts are from hell.  Therefore, in the case of a man who is infertile, it is as likely that it is the effect of an attack of the hells through the body, as it is that it is external evidence of a lack of wisdom in the man.  Let every man use his state of fertility as an opportunity for reflection upon his spiritual life, and not an imposable judgment on himself or others.

Along with the opportunity to play a role in the propagation of the human race, the power of insemination has the effect that men “because of it experience a state of arousal … that women do not experience … because they do not have that power” (CL 219).  This will be of particular note in the discussion concerning preparation for marriage.

An obvious question about the human seed coming from the father is “how can a female child be generated from the soul of a man?”  It is a fact that “the soul is as fully present in its tiniest vessels, which are the seeds or sperm, as it is in its largest one, which is the body” and so the answer lies in the fact that something female “originates from good in the intellect, because this in its essence is truth; for the intellect can think that something is good, thus thinking as true that this something is good.  It is different with the will.  This does not think about goodness and truth but loves them and does them” (CL 220).  Men and women are both said to have will and understanding.  The underlying truth is that in a man both his will and understanding are features of the intellect (CL 195), whereas in women they are both features of the will.  Therefore, a female may be generated from a male father from the good in his intellect even though, in fact, it is truth, for truth and good never exist in isolation of each other.

Men In Relation To Women

One of the hardest things for men to believe is that “a man is not loveable simply on account of his physique … but on account of the gifts he has in him which make him human” (CL 91).  However, the fact is “in men the mind is elevated into a higher light, and in women the mind is elevated into a higher warmth; moreover, a woman feels the delights of her warmth in the light of a man” (CL 188).  Therefore, because “the elevation into a higher light in men is an elevation into higher intelligence and from this into wisdom, in which there is possible a still higher and higher ascent” (CL 188) men should focus their energy on developing this ability in themselves.  Put simply, men should focus on shunning evils and learning the truth so that they can be more effective at shunning evils.  This is the process that makes men loveable and in which women feel delight.  One of the common perceptions today is that women want men to be vulnerable.  This, however, is simply an external calling for what is in reality an internal state.  What women actually want is not a man who is vulnerable, but a man who acknowledges the evils within himself and actively works to shun them from a sight of truth.

Another thing which men receive with difficulty is that they need to learn to love their wives for their wisdom and judgment (CL 155r.4, see also CL 167).  Too often the fact that men are the understanding is taken to mean that men are the sole arbiters of truth.  In reality, men only lend a rational sight of truth where women contribute a perception of truth from love.  This is an elegant system of checks and balances for spiritual life, because where the intellect may be blind to love, or the will blind to truth the other can add wisdom and judgment.  This system of checks and balances depends on the fact that “a man’s will has its seat in his intellect, and the intellectual quality of man is the inmost quality in woman” (CL 195) and only operates in order when “the intellect is only a servant and agent of the will” (CL 196).  Men need to realize that they are just an intellect.  They have an intellectual will and an intellectual understanding (see HH 369) which interact in response to the Lord’s love and wisdom.  Stated simply, they are forms of understanding that have the ability to be lifted into a clear understanding of truth, not obscured by the quality of their love, so that they can act as a servant and agent of the will, which is their wife.  More will be said about this in the discussion of femininity below.

It is important to understand that although in external appearances only a woman takes on substances from her husband, in actuality “a youth turns or is turned into a husband because a husband has elements in him taken from his wife, which heighten the capacity in him for receiving love and wisdom, elements which did not exist in him before as an unmarried man” (CL 199).  Let men not be persuaded by external appearances, or even moderately internal thoughts about the importance of their role in marriage.  In marriage, the husband serves as the base ultimate for the reception of conjugial love, coming in by means of his wife.  He therefore has external activity in response to her internal activity.  This external activity is driven by the descent of conjugial love and, in turn, begins the ascent of the church or, what is the same, marriage within the couple (which only exists once it has been received into the wife).  The situation is clear – there is no truth without a good, there is no wisdom without a love, there is no understanding without a will, there is no husband without a wife.

It seems that a general principle that could be applied to men and women is this – men appear active, women appear passive, men are passive, women are active.  In everything from the ultimate delights, to the approaches to human interaction this seems to hold true.  Perhaps a more accurate way to state this is that men are internally passive and externally active whereas women are externally passive and internally active.  Does this reflect reality?  Or is it simply an appearance?

One final thought regarding men in relation to women.  If men want to succeed in marriage, they need to be pursuing wisdom which finds delight in their wife.  Angel wives once explained what kind of wisdom this is:

It is a spiritual wisdom, and from that a rational and moral one.  Spiritual wisdom is to acknowledge the Lord our Savior as God of heaven and earth, and through the Word and discourses from it to acquire from Him truths connected with the Church, from which comes a spiritual rationality; and in addition to live from Him according to those truths, from which comes a spiritual morality.  Our husbands call these two the wisdom which in general works to produce truly conjugial love.  We have also heard from them the reason, namely, that this wisdom opens the inner faculties of their mind and thus of their body, providing free passage from the firsts to the last of these for the stream of love, on whose flow, sufficiency and strength conjugial love depends for its existence and life. As regards marriage in particular, the spiritual-rational and spiritual-moral wisdom of our husbands has as its end and goal to love only their wives and to rid themselves of all desire for other women.  Moreover, to the extent they achieve this, to that extent that love is heightened in degree and perfected in quality, and the more clearly and keenly do we then feel matching delights in us corresponding to the contented pleasures of our husbands’ affections and the pleasant exaltations of their thoughts. (CL 293)

It may not come naturally to men to pursue a love for religion, an understanding of the truths connected with the church, and so on.  However, as with all spiritual life, the Lord is asking men to rise above their natural inclinations and pursue a higher goal.  Men were designed by the Lord to seek spiritual-rational and spiritual-moral wisdom which is the wisdom which conjoins them with their wives.  It is His perpetual effort to provide opportunities for education, enlightenment, and reflection.  However, it is up to men to use those opportunities to choose well and so become truly masculine.

What It Is To Be A Man

Men are intellectual.  This is not a comment about their IQ, or about the relative IQ of women.  It is simply a reflection of the fact that men operate in the plane of truth.  Does this mean that men cannot be good?  Certainly not – for it is the job of all people to shun evil and do good.  However, it will be seen that men work in terms of truth and only see good as it is formed by truth and not as it is in itself.

It was mentioned above that “truth of good or truth from good exists in the male and is the essence of masculinity” (CL 61, see also CL 88).  This stems from the fact that “a male is born intellect-oriented [or intellectual]” (CL 33, see also CL 90, 159) which means that he “is born with the affection for knowing, understanding and becoming wise” (CL 33).  Therefore, “the masculine form is a form of the intellect [or understanding] “ (CL 33, see also CL 55.6, 100, 187, 218, 325) and “was created to become a form of wisdom from a love of growing wise” (CL 66).  This is true even to the extent that a man’s will is intellectual (CL 165), not just his understanding.  In simple terms, men are wisdom, thought, and intellect (CL 175, see also CL 195) because “the male soul, being intellectual in nature, is therefore truth; for anything intellectual in nature is nothing else” (CL 220, see also HH 368).  It is therefore clear that men are born to be understanding for the sake of becoming wise.

The Lord has provided that  men’s thoughts can be separated from their affections (CL 169) so that they can serve the human race as the rational sight of truth – exercising wisdom and judgment from a sight a truth disconnected from their state in life.   It will be seen that this is both a strength and a weakness.

What Men Do

One of the points of contention between men and women is the matter of employment.  Equal pay for equal work is certainly a good place to start.  However, the Heavenly Doctrines point towards specific approaches to occupations that are characteristically masculine or feminine.  These approaches have implications for optimizing productivity in the workplace.  Employers should seek to understand these approaches if they wish to capitalize on the strengths of the two genders.

The male approach to employment [1] has to do with the intellect.  Therefore, most male employments “are occupational and are directed toward serving the public” because male behavior “stems from a predominance of the intellect.  Consequently, the actions of his life … are directed by reason – or if they are not, he wants them to appear so” (CL 90).  At first, this may sound paternalistic, male chauvinist, and more.  However, pause for a moment to reflect on the fact that “men cannot enter into duties appropriate to women and perform them properly, because they cannot enter into the affections of women, which are completely different from the affections of men” (CL 175).  Men are simply intellects who, if they are looking to the Lord, desire to become wise by focusing on using reason as a servant to good.  Although men receive from the Lord a love of the pursuit of knowledge, it is women who actually love knowledge itself (CL 90-91).

Think for a moment on the reality that a man “not reunited with his beauty and grace in woman is stern, severe, dry and unattractive, and also not wise except for his own sake alone, in which case he is a dunce.  On the other hand, when a man is united with his beauty and grace of life in a wife, he becomes agreeable, pleasant, full of life and loveable, and therefore wise” (CL 56.4).  Men and women were created distinct so that they could complement each other.  Although the Lord provided that there was redundancy in the case of malfunction, when the human being is operating as it was designed, an overlap between masculine and feminine is non-existent. This is seen in the fact that as a marriage begins the couple finds themselves spending a great deal of time defining boundaries and roles.  This begins as a relatively external pursuit, dealing with matters of everyday concern such as taking out the garbage or acquiring income for the household.  As the marriage progresses, however, the need to define boundaries and roles evolves into a more internal inquiry into how the couple can provide for each other.  As a couple allows the Lord to work with them in their relationship with each other and the world, the couple discovers that mutual, reciprocal relationship in which they are more and more one because they are so specifically distinct.  Conjunction lies in the fact that not one thing is the same in a husband and wife.  Therefore they have everything that is them to give as a gift of love to their partner.  Now it should be understood that this does not mean that women would never be paid for their work, or that men would be the sole arbiters of thought.  For in that case external thinking would be predominating over internal.  Rather, the emphasis is on regarding marriage as a pursuit of a conjunction into one, in which both partners have everything to give to the other as a mutual, reciprocal individual.

What It Is To Be Wise

In common parlance wisdom has come to mean some combination of a great quantity of knowledge combined with good judgment.  This is not altogether wrong.  However, it will be seen that it lacks scope, for wisdom can be spiritual, political, or natural – which is to say, wisdom concerning the church, the civil state, and knowledge, experience and skill (CL 130.2).

Regarded in its fullness, wisdom has to do with concepts, reason and life at the same time.  Concepts come first; reason is formed by means of them, and wisdom by both concepts and reason together – and this when a person lives reasonably and rationally according to truths formed as concepts … The most ancient people … did not acknowledge any other wisdom than wisdom of life… the ancients, however, … recognized as wisdom a wisdom of reason … But today, many even call knowledge wisdom … thus has wisdom fallen from its peak to its valley. (CL 130.1; see also HH 280, 322)

This definition of wisdom brings into light the fact that wisdom is a matter not only of knowledge and good judgment, but also of life (see AC 1439, 1563, 3310).  The key to wisdom is living according to the good judgment afforded to one by their knowledge of concepts.  True wisdom, therefore, is “to refrain from evils because they are harmful to the soul, harmful to the civil state, and harmful to the body, and to do good things because they are of benefit to the soul, to the civil state, and to the body” (CL 130.4).  This is the wisdom which good women love and good men love to pursue.

Wisdom In Men

Having firmly established the nature of wisdom abstracted from gender it may now be seen how wisdom manifests itself in men.

“Wisdom cannot take form in a person except through a love of growing wise.  If this love is removed, a person is completely incapable of becoming wise.  Wisdom resulting from this love is what is meant by good’s truth or truth resulting from good [which is masculine]” (CL 88.1).  The implication is that wisdom would not exist in the human race if men did not pursue it because men are that love of growing wise which facilitates wisdom’s formation.

“Wisdom in men is twofold, intellectual and moral, and their intellectual wisdom has to do with their understanding alone, while their moral wisdom has to do with both their understanding and at the same time their life” (CL 163, see also CL 195).  It is the intellectual wisdom which is the internal of a wife (see above in “A Necessary Distinction”), and the moral wisdom which forms their shared external.

Intellectual wisdom has to do with:

knowledge, intelligence and wisdom.  In particular, however, [intellectual wisdom has to do with] rationality, judgment, genius, learning, sagacity … To intellectual wisdom belong also all the fields of study to which adolescents are introduced in schools, and through which they are afterward led into intelligence … such as philosophy, physics, geometry, mechanics, chemistry, astronomy, law, political science, ethics, history, and many more. (CL 163)

Moral wisdom is formed of such virtues as:

temperance, sobriety, integrity, kindliness, friendliness, modesty, honesty, helpfulness, courteousness; also diligence, industriousness, skillfulness, alacrity, generosity, liberality, magnanimity, energy, courage, prudence – not to mention many others. (CL 164, see also AC 2915)

Moral wisdom, being the wisdom of life, also extends to spiritual virtues such as:

love of religion, charity, truthfulness, faith, conscience, innocence, as well as many more.  These virtues, both moral and spiritual, can be attributed in general to a man’s love and zeal for religion, for the public good, for his country, for his fellow citizens, for his parents, for his wife, and for his children.  In all of these justice and judgment prevail.  Justice has to do with moral wisdom, and judgment has to do with intellectual wisdom. (CL 164, see also AC 5114; HH 529

The intellectual and moral wisdom of men forms the foundation upon which a marriage rests.  It will be seen that a wife has a moral wisdom that is conjoined to her husband’s moral wisdom and that a wife is conjoined inwardly with her husband’s intellectual wisdom.  The latter is an internal conjunction because “this wisdom is characteristic of the intellect of men, and it ascends into a light in which women are not” (CL 165, see also CL 188).

Wisdom is formed in men by truth received from “a constant union of love and wisdom [that] flows from the Lord …and to it the Lord joins goodness of love according to his reception.” It is the male disposition “to know, understand, and be wise” because “the male is by nature or temperament inclined to develop his understanding, consequently … he is born to become intellect-oriented.  But because this cannot happen apart from love, therefore the Lord attaches love to him according to his reception, that is, according to the spirit in him that wills to become wise” (CL 90, see also AR 949; AC 2069, 5986, 6472, 7343).  The love of growing wise, which defines masculinity, is present with a man to the degree that he uses what he knows to make decisions in pursuit of wisdom in life.  A man becomes more masculine, in the degree that the Lord is able to attach a love of growing wise to the knowledge that he has acquired.  This process appears to be bootstrapping.  However, upon reflection it is evident that all people are simply vessels having no life of their own (AC 3318).  From this it becomes clear that, seeing as it is the decision which defines an individual, a man becomes more masculine to the extent that he makes choices receptive of life and wisdom from the Lord.  Therefore, by making decisions that pursue the wisdom of life a man causes himself to become a better vessel for receiving wisdom from the Lord, and so he becomes more able to see his way clear to make those good decisions.

There are two applications of masculine wisdom that are of particular note.

The first application of masculine wisdom is reading the Word.

When a person reads the Word and draws truths from it, the Lord attaches good.  For the person does not see the states of good affecting him, because he uses his intellect to read the Word, and the intellect takes in from the Word only what is proper to it, namely, truths.  The intellect does have a sense that the Lord joins good to these truths, from the delight that flows in when it is in a state of enlightenment, but this takes place inwardly only in the case of people who read the Word for the purpose of gaining wisdom, and those have this purpose who are trying to learn genuine truths from it and thereby form the church in themselves.  In contrast, people who read the Word only for the glory of being learned, and people who suppose that simply the reading or hearing of the Word inspires faith and leads to salvation – such people do not receive any good from the Lord. (CL 128, see also AC 6222, 7503, 8694)

The intellect is said to be what is used when reading the Word.  Truths, therefore, are acquired in reading the Word, but goods are merely sensed.  Does this mean that only men should read the Word?  Absolutely not.  However, as this passage describes it, the process of drawing truths from the Word explicitly and goods only by proxy, may very well be describing the case of a man reading the Word (as it is not characteristic of the feminine to receive good only indirectly).

The second application is reception of conjugial love.

When the inner faculties of the rational mind have been opened, the person becomes an image of wisdom, and this wisdom is the receptacle of truly conjugial love.  The wisdom which … receives this love is rational and at the same time moral wisdom.  Rational wisdom views the truths and good virtues that inwardly appear in a person not as qualities belonging to him but as qualities flowing in from the Lord.  And moral wisdom shuns evils and falsities as contagious diseases – especially lascivious ones which contaminate his conjugial love. (CL 102)

This description of wisdom as the receptacle of truly conjugial love is striking on account of the fact that women are the vehicle for conjugial love entering the human race (see below).  What is uncovered in this passage, as in other places, is the fact that although conjugial love is received into the human race by the agency of women, it does not exist in the human race unless it is received by men.  This is the complement to the fact that the church is received into the human race by the agency of men, but it does not exist in the human race unless it is received by women.  More will be seen concerning these truths later.