92. VII. MARRIAGE ALSO INDUCES OTHER FORMS IN THE SOULS AND MINDS OF
MARRIED PARTNERS. That marriage has this effect cannot be observed in
the natural world; because in this world souls and minds are encompassed
with a material body, through which the mind rarely shines: the men
(_homines_) also of modern times, more than the ancients, are taught
from their infancy to assume feigned countenances, whereby they deeply
conceal the affections of their minds; and this is the reason why the
forms of minds are not known and distinguished according to their
different quality, as existing before marriage and after it:
nevertheless that the forms of souls and minds differ after marriage
from what they were before, is very manifest from their appearance in
the spiritual world; for they are then spirits and angels, who are minds
and souls in a human form, stripped of their outward coverings, which
had been composed of watery and earthy elements, and of aerial vapors
thence arising; and when these are cast off, the forms of the minds are
plainly seen, such as they had been inwardly in their bodies; and then
it is clearly perceived, that there is a difference in regard to those
forms with those who live in marriage, and with those who do not. In
general, married partners have an interior beauty of countenance, the
man deriving from the wife the ruddy bloom of her love, and the wife
from the man the fair splendor of his wisdom; for two married partners
in the spiritual world are united as to their souls; and moreover there
appears in each a human fulness. This is the case in heaven, because
there are no marriages (_conjugia_) in any other place; beneath heaven
there are only nuptial connections (_connubia_), which are alternately
tied and loosed.
193. VIII. THE WOMAN IS ACTUALLY FORMED INTO A WIFE, ACCORDING TO THE
DESCRIPTION IN THE BOOK OF CREATION. In this book it is said, that the
woman was created out of the man's rib, and that the man said, when she
was brought to him, "This is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh;
and she shall be called Eve (_Ischah_), because she was taken out of man
(_Isch_):" Gen. chap. ii. 21-23. A rib of the breast, in the Word,
signifies, in the spiritual sense, natural truth. This is signified by
the ribs which the bear carried between his teeth, Dan. vii. 5; for
bears signify those who read the Word in the natural sense, and see
truths therein without understanding: the man's breast signifies that
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