en informed that polygamical love and the
love of the sex, also the lust of deflowering and the lust of variety,
have induced the minds (_animos_) of some to desire repeated marriages;
and that the minds of some have also been induced thereto by a fear of
the law and of the loss of reputation, in case they commit whoredom:
besides several other circumstances which promote external inclinations
to matrimony.

320. III. WITH THOSE WHO HAVE NOT BEEN IN LOVE TRULY CONJUGIAL, THERE IS
NO OBSTACLE OR HINDRANCE TO THEIR AGAIN CONTRACTING WEDLOCK. With those
who have not been principled in conjugial love, there is no spiritual or
internal, but only a natural or external bond; and if an internal bond
does not keep the external in its order and tenor, the latter is but
like a bundle when the bandage is removed, which flows every way
according as it is tossed or driven by the wind. The reason of this is,
because what is natural derives its origin from what is spiritual, and
in its existence is merely a mass collected from spiritual principles;
wherefore if the natural be separated from the spiritual, which produced
and as it were begot it, it is no longer kept together interiorly, but
only exteriorly by the spiritual, which encompasses and binds it in
general, and does not tie it and keep it tied together in particular.
Hence it is, that the natural principle separated from the spiritual, in
the case of two married partners, does not cause any conjunction of
minds, and consequently of wills, but only a conjunction of some
external affections, which are connected with the bodily senses. The
reason why nothing opposes and hinders such persons from again
contracting wedlock, is, because they have not been the essentials of
marriage; and hence those essentials do not at all influence them after
separation by death: therefore they are then absolutely at their own
disposal, whether they be widowers or widows, to bind their sensual
affections with whomsoever they please, provided there be no legal
impediment. Neither do they themselves think of marriages in any other
than a natural view, and from a regard to convenience in supplying
various necessities and external advantages, which after the death of
one of the parties may again be supplied by another; and possibly, if
their interior thoughts were viewed, as in the spiritual world, there
would not be found in them any distinction between conjugial unions and
extra-conjugial connections.