Marriage

People are married after death.

• As heaven is from the human race, and consequently the angels there are of both sexes, and from creation woman is for man and man is for woman, thus the one belongs to the other, and this love is innate in both, it follows that there are marriages in heaven as well as on the earth. But marriages in heaven differ widely from marriages on the earth. Therefore what marriages in heaven are, and how they differ from marriages on the earth and wherein they are like them, will now be told. (Heaven and Hell §366) Read more.
  • Marriage in heaven is a conjunction of two into one mind. It will first be explained what this conjunction is. The mind consists of two parts, one called the understanding and the other the will. When these two parts act as one they are said to be one mind. In heaven the husband acts the part called the understanding and the wife acts the part called the will. When this conjunction, which belongs to man's interiors, descends into the lower things pertaining to the body, it is perceived and felt as love, and this love is conjugial love. From this it is clear that conjugial love has its origin in the conjunction of two into one mind. This in heaven is called cohabitation; and it is said that they are not two but one. So in heaven a married pair is spoken of, not as two, but as one angel. (Heaven and Hell §367) Read more.
    • Everyone, whether man or woman, rejoices in understanding and will; but with the man the understanding predominates, and with the woman the will predominates, and the character is determined by that which predominates. Yet in marriages in the heavens there is no predominance; for the will of the wife is also the husband's will, and the understanding of the husband is also the wife's understanding, since each loves to will and to think as the other, that is, mutually and reciprocally. Thus are they conjoined into one.
      
      This conjunction is actual conjunction, for the will of the wife enters into the understanding of the husband, and the understanding of the husband into the will of the wife, and this especially when they look into one another's faces; for, as has been repeatedly said above, there is in the heavens a sharing of thoughts and affections, more especially with husband and wife, because they reciprocally love each other. From all this it can be established what the conjunction of minds is that makes marriage and produces conjugial love in the heavens, namely, that one wishes what is his own to be the other's, and this reciprocally. (Heaven and Hell §369)
• I have been shown how the delights of conjugial love advance towards heaven, and the delights of adultery towards hell. The advance of the delights of conjugial love towards heaven was into states of blessedness and happiness continually increasing until they became innumerable and ineffable, and the more interiorly they advanced the more innumerable and more ineffable they became, until they reached the very states of blessedness and happiness of the inmost heaven, or of the heaven of innocence, and this through the most perfect freedom; for all freedom is from love, thus the most perfect freedom is from conjugial love, which is heavenly love itself.
  
  On the other hand, the advance of adultery was towards hell, and by degrees to the lowest hell, where there is nothing but what is direful and horrible. Such a lot awaits adulterers after their life in the world, those being meant as adulterers who perceive a delight in adulteries, and no delight in marriages. (Heaven and Hell §386) Read more.
  • Those that are in heaven are continually advancing towards the spring of life, with a greater advance towards a more joyful and happy spring the more thousands of years they live; and this to eternity, with increase according to the growth and degree of their love, charity, and faith. Women who have died old and worn out with age, if they have lived in faith in the Lord, in charity to the neighbor, and in happy marriage love with a husband, advance with the succession of years more and more into the flower of youth and early womanhood, and into a beauty that transcends every conception of any such beauty as is seen on the earth. (Heaven and Hell §414) Read more.
    • Goodness and charity are what give this form and thus manifest their own likeness, causing the joy and beauty of charity to shine forth from every least particular of the face, and causing them to be the very forms of charity. Some who beheld this were struck with amazement. The form of charity that is seen in a living way in heaven, is such that it is charity itself that both forms and is formed; and this in such a manner that the whole angel is a charity, as it were, especially the face; and this is both clearly seen and felt. When this form is beheld it is beauty unspeakable, affecting with charity the very inmost life of the mind. In a word, to grow old in heaven is to grow young. Such forms or such beauties do those become in the other life who have lived in love to the Lord and in charity towards the neighbor. All angels are such forms in endless variety; and of these heaven is constituted. (Heaven and Hell §414)
• Spiritual marriage is meant by the Lord's words, that after the resurrection they are not given in marriage. (Conjugial Love §41) Read more.
  • But certain of the Sadducees, who deny that there is any resurrection, came to Him and asked Him, saying, Teacher, Moses wrote to us that if someone's brother die having a wife, and he die childless, that his brother should take his wife, and raise up seed to his brother. There were therefore seven brothers, and the first took a wife, and died childless. And the second took the wife, and he died childless. And the third took her, and likewise the seven also, and they left no children, and died. And last of all the woman died also. In the resurrection therefore, whose wife of them is she? for the seven had her to wife.
    
    And Jesus answering said to them, The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage; but they who shall be accounted worthy to obtain that age, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage; for they cannot any more die; for they are equal to the angels, and are the sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.
    
    But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed at the bush, when he calls the Lord the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; and He is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to Him. (Luke 20:27-38).
  • The Lord taught two things by these words. First, that a person rises again after death. And secondly, that people are not given in marriage in heaven. He taught that a person rises again after death by saying that God is not God of the dead but of the living, and that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are still alive. So likewise in the parable about the rich man in hell and Lazarus in heaven (Luke 16:19-31).
    
    Secondly, He taught that people are not given in marriage in heaven by saying that those who are held worthy to attain the second age neither marry nor are given in marriage. The only kind of marriage meant here is spiritual marriage, and this clearly appears from the words that immediately follow, that they cannot die any more because they are like the angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection.
    
    By spiritual marriage, conjunction with the Lord is meant, and this is achieved on earth. And when it has been achieved on earth, it has also been achieved in heaven. Therefore in heaven the marriage does not take place again, nor are people given in marriage. This, too, is meant by the words, "The children of this age marry and are given in marriage. But those who are held worthy to attain the second age neither marry nor are given in marriage." (Conjugial Love §41:1-2)
• Suggested Reading: Heaven and Hell §366-386, Conjugial Love §27-43

There is a truly conjugial love, which today is so rare that people do not know what it is like, and scarcely that it exists.

• The possibility of the kind of conjugial love described in the following pages may indeed be recognized from the first state of that love, when it is first stealing into and entering the heart of a young man and woman, as it does in the case of those who are beginning to love only one of the opposite sex and to want him or her as their betrothed. And still more during the time of engagement, as this stretches on and draws nearer the wedding. And finally at the time of the wedding, and in the first days after it. Who does not then acknowledge and give assent to the following thoughts, that this love is the fundamental love of all loves? Moreover, that all joys and all delights have been gathered into it, from the first to the last of them? (Conjugial Love §58) Read more.
  • But who does not also know that after this happy time, these glad feelings gradually wane and disappear, until at last they are hardly felt. If at that time one says to these same people the same thing as before, that this love is the fundamental love of all loves, and that all joys and delights have been gathered into it, they neither assent nor acknowledge this. Perhaps they will even say these are foolish notions, or that they are mysteries beyond comprehension.
    
    It is clear from this that the early love in marriage emulates truly conjugial love and presents a kind of visible image of it. This is the case because a love for the opposite sex in general, which is unchaste, is then renounced, and in its place love for one of the sex sits implanted, which is a truly conjugial love and chaste. What man at that time does not look upon other women with a loveless nod, and on his one and only with a loving one? (Conjugial Love §58)
• Nevertheless, truly conjugial love is so rare that people do not know what it is like, and scarcely that it exists. This is because the state of happy feelings before the wedding afterwards turns into a state of indifference as these feelings become no longer felt. The reasons for this change in state are too many to be presented here, but they will be presented in a later chapter, where the reasons for states of coldness, separations and divorces are disclosed in turn [See Conjugial Love §234] It will be seen from these that in most people today, the image of conjugial love referred to above is so extinguished - and with it, knowledge of this love - that people do not even know what it is like, and scarcely that it exists. (Conjugial Love §59) Read more.
  • People know that every person is merely physical at birth, and that from being physical he becomes more and more deeply natural, and thus rational, and finally spiritual. The reason for such a progressive development is that the physical element is the soil, so to speak, in which natural, rational and spiritual qualities are planted in turn. A person thus becomes more and more human.
    
    Almost the same sort of thing happens when one enters marriage. A person then becomes a more complete human being, because he is united with a partner with whom he may act as one person. In the first state, however, this is reflected in a kind of image, as mentioned before. In similar fashion he then starts from the physical element and progresses into the natural, only this time in respect to married life and so union into one.
    
    People who in this state love the physical, natural aspects, and the rational aspects only on account of these, cannot be united with their partner as though into one, except in respect to these external aspects. When the external aspects then fade, the inward ones are invaded by coldness, which takes away the delights of this love, driving them first from the mind and so from the body, and afterwards from the body and so from the mind. And this finally reaches the point that nothing remains of their memory of the early state of their marriage, nor do they consequently retain any concept of it.
    
    Now because this is what happens in the case of most people today, it is plain that people do not know what truly conjugial love is like, and scarcely that it exists. It is different in the case of people who are spiritual. In their case, the first state of marriage is an introduction to continuing states of happiness, which advance as the spiritual rationality of the mind and consequently the natural sensuality of the body in one partner join and unite with these same qualities in the other. But people like this are rare. (Conjugial Love §59)
• Regarded from its origin and correspondence, this love is celestial, spiritual, holy, pure and clean, more so than any other love which exists from the Lord in angels of heaven or people of the church. With respect to conjugial love's being of such a character from its origin, which is the marriage between good and truth... So also with respect to that love's being of such a character from its correspondence with the marriage of the Lord and the church.
  
  These two marriages, from which conjugial love descends as an offshoot, are the essence of holiness. Consequently, if conjugial love is received from its Author, who is the Lord, it is accompanied by holiness from Him, which continually purges and purifies the love. If, then, a person has a desire and striving for it in his will, that love daily becomes more clean and pure to eternity. (Conjugial Love §64) Read more.
  • Conjugial love is called celestial and spiritual because it exists among angels in heaven... Now, because conjugial love exists among angels in heaven, in both the higher and lower heavens... it follows that this love is holy and pure. As for the statement that regarded from its derivation, in its essence this love is holy and pure, more so than any other love in angels and men, this is because that love is, so to speak, the head of all the other loves. (Conjugial Love §64:2-3)
• But no others come into that love and no others can be in it but those who go to the Lord and love the truths of the church and do the good things it teaches. No others come into this love but those who go to the Lord, because monogamous marriages, which are marriages of one man with one wife, correspond to the marriage of the Lord and the church, and they have their origin from the marriage between goodness and truth (See Conjugial Love §60-63). (Conjugial Love §70) Read more.
  • No others can be in a state of truly conjugial love but those who receive it from the Lord - namely, those who go to Him directly and live the life of the church from Him - for the reason that this love, viewed in terms of its origin and correspondence, is celestial, spiritual, holy, pure and clean, more than any other love that is found in angels of heaven or people of the church... And these attributes of it cannot exist except in people who are joined to the Lord and brought by Him into association with angels of heaven. (Conjugial Love §71) Read more.
    • That is because people like this abstain from love affairs outside of marriage, which are liaisons with others than their rightful wife or husband, and they abstain from them as injuries to the soul and as cesspools of hell. And in the degree that a married person abstains from such liaisons, even as regards the lusts of his will and his consequent intentions, in the same degree conjugial love is purified in him and becomes progressively spiritual, first during his life on earth, and afterwards in heaven.
      
      No love can ever become pure in human beings, nor in angels. So neither can this love. But because the Lord primarily regards the intention that is in the will, therefore to the extent that a person has the intention and perseveres in it, to that extent he is introduced into the purity and holiness of this love, and gradually makes progress in it.
      
      No others can be in a state of spiritual conjugial love but those who are in it from the Lord, because heaven is in that love. And the natural man - for whom conjugial love takes its pleasure solely from the flesh - cannot draw near to heaven, nor to any angel. Indeed, neither can he draw near to any person who possesses that love, for that love is the fundamental love of all celestial and spiritual loves... (Conjugial Love §71:1-2)
  • Only those people come into truly conjugial love and only those can be in it who love the truths of the church and do the good things it teaches, for the reason that no others are accepted by the Lord. That is because people who love the truths of the church and do the good things it teaches are in a state of conjunction with the Lord, and consequently they can be kept in that love by Him. (Conjugial Love §72) Read more.
    • There are two things which form the church and so heaven in a person: truth of faith and goodness of life. Truth of faith brings the Lord's presence, and goodness of life in accordance with truths of faith brings conjunction with Him and thus forms the church and heaven. Truth of faith brings presence because it has to do with light, that being what spiritual light is. Goodness of life brings conjunction because it has to do with warmth, that being what spiritual warmth is; for spiritual warmth is love, and goodness of life has to do with love. We also know that all light - even wintry light - brings presence, and that warmth united with light brings conjunction; for gardens and flower-beds become visible in every kind of light, but they do not produce flowers and fruit until warmth is combined with the light.
      
      The evident conclusion from this is that people are blessed with truly conjugial love not if they only know the truths of the church, but if they know them and do the good things it teaches. (Conjugial Love §72)
  • The human inclination towards marriage goes hand in hand with religion at every step. Every little step and every stride away from religion or towards religion is also a step or stride away from or towards the conjugial inclination that is peculiar and proper to a Christian person. (Conjugial Love §80:2)
• For people who desire truly conjugial love, the Lord provides similar partners, and if they are not found on earth, He provides them in heaven. This results from the fact that all marriages of truly conjugial love are provided by the Lord. They come from Him (see Conjugial Love §130-131). But how they are provided in heaven, I once heard described by angels as follows: Read more.
  • The Lord's Divine providence is most specific and most universal in connection with marriages and in its operation in marriages, because all delights of heaven flow from the delights of conjugial love, like sweet waters from a gushing spring. It is therefore provided that conjugial pairs be born, and they are raised and continually prepared for their marriages under the Lord's guidance, neither the boy nor the girl being aware of it. Then, after a period of time, the girl - now a marriageable young woman - and the boy - now a young man ready to marry - meet somewhere, as though by fate, and notice each other. And they immediately recognize, as if by a kind of instinct, that they are a match, thinking to themselves as from a kind of inner dictate, the young man, 'she is mine,' and the young woman, 'he is mine.' Later, after this thought has for some time become settled in the minds of each, they deliberately talk about it together and pledge themselves to each other in marriage.
    
    We say as though by fate, by instinct and as from a kind of dictate, when we mean by Divine providence, because when one is unaware that it is Divine providence, that is how it appears. For the Lord unveils their inner similarities so that they notice each other. (Conjugial Love §229)

Conjugial love joins two souls and thus two minds into one.

• And He answering said to them, Have you not read that He who made them from the beginning made them male and female? And said, On this account shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall be one flesh.  Wherefore they are no longer two, but one flesh.  What therefore, God has joined together, let no man put asunder. (Matthew 19:4-6)
• People's souls and minds are not in space, as their bodies are, because, as we said above, their souls and minds are from their origin celestial and spiritual. And because they are not in space, they can be joined together as though into one, even though their bodies cannot be so joined at the same time. (Conjugial Love §158:2) Read more.
  • Every human being is made up of soul, mind and body. The soul is his inmost constituent; the mind is his intermediate one; and the body is the outmost part. Because the soul is a person's inmost constituent, it is, from its origin, celestial. Because the mind is his intermediate constituent, it is, from its origin, spiritual. And because the body is the outmost part, it is, from its origin, natural.
    
    Things which are, from their origin, celestial, and things which are, from their origin, spiritual, do not exist in space, but are in appearances of space. This is also known in the world. That is why it is said that spiritual things cannot have dimension or location ascribed to them. Consequently, since the spaces are appearances, distances and nearnesses are appearances as well. Appearances of distance and nearness in the spiritual world depend on congruences, similarities, and affinities of love, as I have quite often pointed out and established in works I have written about that world. (Conjugial Love §158)
  • This conjunction takes place especially between married partners who love each other deeply. But because woman comes from man, and this conjunction is a kind of reunion, reason can see that it is not an amalgamation into one but an adjunction, nearer and closer according to the love, and to the point of contact in those who are in a state of truly conjugial love. This adjunction may be called a spiritual dwelling together, which occurs in the case of married partners who love each other tenderly, however separated they may be in body. There are many evidences of experience, even in the natural world, which attest to this. It is apparent from this that conjugial love joins two souls and minds into one. (Conjugial Love §158:2) Read more.
    • Partners who are in a state of truly conjugial love feel themselves to be a united person and as though one flesh. We can confirm that this is so only from the declarations of people in heaven, and not from the testimony of people on earth, since among people on earth truly conjugial love does not presently exist. In addition, people on earth are also enveloped in a coarse body, which dulls and swallows up the sensation that the two partners are a united person and virtually one flesh. And besides, people in the world who love their partners only outwardly and not inwardly do not wish to hear this. They think lasciviously concerning it, too, in terms of the flesh. Not so in the case of angels in heaven, because the conjugial love they possess is spiritual and celestial, and they are not clothed in as coarse a body as people on earth.
      
      I have listened to angels who have lived with their partners in heaven for centuries, and I have heard it attested by them that they feel themselves to be united in this way, a husband with his wife and a wife with her husband, and to be each in the other mutually and reciprocally, seemingly, even, in respect to the flesh, even if they are apart. (Conjugial Love §178)
• This union takes place gradually from the first days of marriage, and in people who are in a state of truly conjugial love, it becomes deeper and deeper to eternity. (Conjugial Love §162) Read more.
  • The first heat in marriage does not join two people together, because it draws its character from a love for the opposite sex, which is a love belonging to the body and on that account to the spirit. And whatever is in the spirit as a result of the body does not last long. But love that is in the body as a result of the spirit does last. Love belonging to the spirit, and to the body as a result of the spirit, is insinuated into the souls and minds of married partners together with friendship and mutual trust. When friendship and mutual trust join together with the first love in marriage, conjugial love results, which opens the partners' hearts and inspires in them the sweet enjoyments of love, and this more and more deeply as friendship and trust are added to the original love, and as that original love enters into this friendship and trust and they into it. (Conjugial Love §162)
• Conjugial love is of such a nature as to desire to be altogether the other’s, and this reciprocally; and that when this is experienced mutually and reciprocally they are in heavenly happiness… The conjunction of minds… is in everything of their life, that is, in everything of their affection, and in everything of their thought. (Arcana Coelestia §2731) Read more.
  • The love of dominion of one over the other entirely takes away marriage love and its heavenly delight, for... marriage love and its delight consists in the will of one being that of the other, and this mutually and reciprocally.  This is destroyed by love of dominion in marriage since he that domineers wishes his will alone to be in the other, and nothing of the other’s will to be reciprocally in himself, which destroys all mutuality, and thus all sharing of any love and its delight one with the other.  And yet this sharing and consequent conjunction are the interior delight itself called blessedness in marriage.
    
    When one wills or loves what the other wills or loves each has freedom, since all freedom is from love; but where there is dominion, no one has freedom; one is a servant, and the other who rules is also a servant, for he is led as a servant by the lust of ruling.  But all this is wholly beyond the comprehension of one who does not know what the freedom of heavenly love is.  (Heaven and Hell §380)

All delights have been gathered into this love, from the first to the last of them, because of the excellence of the use it serves, surpassing that of all other loves.

• All delights have been gathered into this love, from the first to the last of them, because of the excellence of the use it serves, surpassing that of all other loves. The use it serves is the propagation of the human race and so of the angelic heaven. And because this use or purpose was the ultimate goal in creation, it follows that all blessings, felicities, delights, gratifications and pleasures, which could ever have been conferred on mankind by the Lord the Creator, have been gathered into this, its accompanying love. (Conjugial Love §68:2) Read more.
  • The states produced by this love are innocence, peace, tranquility, inmost friendship, complete trust, a mutual desire of the mind and heart to do the other every good; also, as a result of all these bliss, felicity, delight, pleasure, and owing to an eternal enjoyment of states like this, the happiness of heaven. (Conjugial Love §180)
  • I know that few will accept that all joys and all delights, from the first to the last of them, have been gathered into conjugial love, and this for the reason that truly conjugial love - the love into which these joys and delights have been gathered - today is so rare that people do not know what it is like, and scarcely that it exists. For these joys and delights do not occur in any other conjugial love than genuine conjugial love. And because genuine conjugial love on earth is so rare, it is impossible to describe its supreme states of bliss on the basis of anything other than the testimony of angels, because angels experience it. (Conjugial Love §69)
  • All the delights of truly conjugial love, even the end delights, are chaste. (Conjugial Love §144)
  • These blessings are not at all possible except in a marriage of one man with one wife. (Conjugial Love §181)
• Conjugial love descends from the marriage between good and truth. It is spiritual, as the church in a person is spiritual. It is the fundamental love and head of all celestial and spiritual loves.  It is truly the seedbed of the human race and consequently of the angelic heaven... The use it serves is thus more excellent than the other uses in creation. (Conjugial Love §143)
  • Take wives, and beget sons and daughters: and take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters; that you may be increased there, and not diminished. (Jeremiah 29:6)

Marriages in the world are to continue to the end of life.

• And I say unto you that whoever shall send away his wife, except for whoredom, and shall marry another, commits adultery; and he who marries her who is sent away commits adultery. (Matthew 19:9)
• Marriages in the world are to continue to the end of life. We cite this point to present more clearly to the sight of reason how necessary, useful and true it is that in marriages where conjugial love is not genuine, it should still be affected or be made to appear as though it were. It would be different if marriages once entered into were not compacts to the end of life, but could be dissolved at will. (Conjugial Love §276) Read more.
  • Since the marriage covenant is accordingly a covenant for life, it follows that appearances of love and friendship between married partners are necessary. The principle that marriages once contracted are to continue on to the end of life in the world is based on Divine law, and being based on this, it is a matter also of rational law and therefore of civil law. It is based on the Divine law which says that it is not lawful to divorce a wife and marry another excepting on the grounds of licentiousness, as cited above. It is a matter of rational law, because rational law is founded on spiritual law, since the Divine law and rational law are the same. In the light of the one and the other together, or by considering the rational law in the light of the Divine law, it may appear to a great number of people what monstrous and destructive ruinations of society and dissolutions of marriages would result if divorcings of wives were at the good pleasure of husbands, prior to death. (Conjugial Love §276:2)
• By divorce we mean an abolishment of the marriage covenant and thus total separation, with complete liberty after that to take another wife. The only ground for this total separation or divorce is licentiousness, according to the Lord’s precept in Matthew. (Conjugial Love §468) Read more.
  • Adultery is ground for divorce. There are many explanations for this which appear in the light of reason and yet today lie hidden. From the light of reason it may be seen that marriages are sacred and adulterous affairs profane; consequently that marriages and adulterous relationships are diametrically opposed to each other; and that when opposite acts upon opposite, one destroys the other even to the last spark of its life. This is what happens with conjugial love when a married man deliberately and thus purposefully commits acts of adultery.
    
    These considerations come more clearly into the light of reason in the case of people who know something about heaven and hell. For they know that marriages have their origin in heaven and from heaven, whereas adulterous relationships have their origin in hell and from hell. Thus they know that the two cannot be combined, as heaven cannot be combined with hell; and that if they are combined in a person, immediately heaven withdraws and hell enters.
    
    It is on account of this, then, that adultery is ground for divorce. Therefore the Lord says: ...whoever divorces his wife, excepting for licentiousness, and marries another, commits adultery... (Matthew 19:9)
    
    He says a person commits adultery if he divorces and marries another "excepting for licentiousness," because divorce for this latter reason involves a full and complete separation of minds, which is properly called divorce. But all other cases of divorce on their own particular grounds are properly separations, [see Conjugial Love §251] If after such separations a person takes another wife, he commits adultery. Not, however, after divorce. (Conjugial Love §255:1-2)