efore
perceived, at which they greatly complained. Then, while they were in
this state, the females were brought to them, and the wives to the
husbands; and both the wives and the other females addressed them in the
tenderest and most engaging manner; but they were cold to their
tenderness, and turned away, and said one to another, "What is all this?
what is a female?" And when some of the women said that they were their
wives, they replied, "What is a wife? we do not know you." But when the
wives began to be grieved at this absolutely cold indifference of the
men, and some of them to shed tears, the sphere of the love of the
female sex, and the conjugial sphere, which had for a time been
withdrawn from the men, was restored; and then the men instantly
returned into their former state, the lovers of marriage into their
state, and the lovers of the sex into theirs. Thus the men were
convinced, that nothing of conjugial love, or even of the love of the
sex, resides with them, but only with the wives and females.
Nevertheless, the wives afterwards from their prudence induced the men
to believe, that love resides with the men, and that some small spark of
it may pass from them into the wives. This experimental evidence is here
adduced, in order that it may be known, that wives are loves and men
recipients. That men are recipients according to their wisdom,
especially according to this wisdom grounded in religion, that the wife
only is to be loved, is evident from this consideration, that so long as
the wife only is loved, the love is concentrated; and because it is also
ennobled, it remains in its strength, and is fixed and permanent; and
that in any other case it would be as when wheat from the granary is
cast to the dogs, whereby there is scarcity at home.

162. VI. THIS CONJUNCTION IS EFFECTED SUCCESSIVELY FROM THE FIRST DAYS
OF MARRIAGE; AND WITH THOSE WHO ARE PRINCIPLED IN LOVE TRULY CONJUGIAL,
IT IS EFFECTED MORE AND MORE THOROUGHLY TO ETERNITY. The first heat of
marriage does not conjoin; for it partakes of the love of the sex, which
is the love of the body and thence of the spirit; and what is in the
spirit, as derived from the body, does not long continue; but the love
which is in the body, and is derived from the spirit, does continue. The
love of the spirit, and of the body from the spirit, is insinuated into
the souls and minds of married partners, together with friendship and
confidence. When these two (friends