The reason why it is allowable for these to
contract repeated marriages, is, as above-mentioned, because merely
natural connections are after death of themselves dissolved and fall
asunder; for by death the external affections follow the body, and are
entombed with it; those only remaining which are connected with internal
principles. But it is to be observed, that marriages interiorly
conjunctive can scarcely be entered into in the world, because elections
of internal likenesses cannot there be provided by the Lord as in the
heavens; for they are limited in many ways, as to equals in rank and
condition, within the country, city, and village where they live; and in
the world for the most part married partners are held together merely by
externals, and thus not by internals, which internals do not shew
themselves till some time after marriage, and are only known when they
influence the externals.

321. IV. THOSE WHO HAD LIVED TOGETHER IN LOVE TRULY CONJUGIAL ARE
UNWILLING TO MARRY AGAIN, EXCEPT FOR REASONS SEPARATE FROM CONJUGIAL
LOVE. The reasons why those who had lived in love truly conjugial, after
the death of their married partners are unwilling to marry again, are as
follow. 1. Because they were united as to their souls, and thence as to
their minds; and this union, being spiritual, is an actual junction of
the soul and mind of one of the parties to those of the other, which
cannot possibly be dissolved; that such is the nature of spiritual
conjunction, has been constantly shewn above. 2. Because they were also
united as to their bodies by the receptions of the propagation of the
soul of the husband by the wife, and thus by the insertion of his life
into hers, whereby a maiden becomes a wife; and on the other hand by the
reception of the conjugial love of the wife by the husband, which
disposes the interiors of his mind, and at the same time the interiors
and exteriors of his body, into a state receptible of love and
perceptible of wisdom, which makes him from a youth become a husband;
see above, n. 198. 3. Because a sphere of love from the wife, and a
sphere of understanding from the man, is continually flowing forth, and
because it perfects conjunctions, and encompasses them with its pleasant
influence, and unites them; see also above, n. 223. 4. Because married
partners thus united think of, and desire what is eternal, and because
on this idea their eternal happiness is founded; see n. 216. 5. From
these severa