orld beauty is the form of the love and manners; therefore
after death it frequently happens that deformed women become beauties,
and beautiful women become deformities. While the men were discussing
this point, there came some wives, and said, "Admit of our presence;
because what you are discussing, you have learned by science, but we are
taught it by experience; and you likewise know so little of the love of
wives, that it scarcely amounts to any knowledge. Do you know that the
prudence of the wives' wisdom consists in hiding their love from their
husbands in the inmost recess of their bosoms, or in the midst of their
hearts?" The discussion then proceeded; and the FIRST CONCLUSION made by
the men was, That every woman is willing to appear beautiful as to face
and manners, because she is born an affection of love, and the form of
this affection is beauty; therefore a woman that is not desirous to be
beautiful, is not desirous to love and to be loved, and consequently is
not truly a woman. Hereupon the wives observed, "The beauty of a woman
resides in soft tenderness, and consequently in exquisite sensibility;
hence comes the woman's love for the man, and the man's for the woman.
This possibly you do not understand." The SECOND CONCLUSION of the men
was, That a woman before marriage is desirous to be beautiful for the
men, but after marriage, if she be chaste, for one man only, and not for
the men. Hereupon the wives observed. "When the husband has sipped the
natural beauty of the wife, he sees it no longer, but sees her spiritual
beauty; and from this he re-loves, and recalls the natural beauty, but
under another aspect." The THIRD CONCLUSION of their discussion was,
That if a woman after marriage is desirous to appear beautiful in like
manner as before marriage, she loves the men, and not a man: because a
woman loving herself from her beauty is continually desirous that her
beauty should be sipped; and as this no longer appears to her husband,
as you observed, she is desirous that it may be sipped by the men to
whom it appears. It is evident that such a one has a love of the sex,
and not a love of one of the sex. Hereupon the wives were silent; yet
they murmured, "What woman is so void of vanity, as not to desire to
seem beautiful to the men also, at the same time that she seems
beautiful to one man only?" These things were heard by some wives from
heaven, who were beautiful, because they were heavenly affections. They