175. That the wife cannot enter into the offices proper to the man, nor, on the other hand, the man into the offices proper to the wife, is because they differ as do wisdom and the love thereof, or thought and its affection, or the intellect and its will. In the offices proper to men, understanding, thought, and wisdom play the leading part, but in the offices proper to wives, the leading part is played by will, affection, and love; and the wife performs her offices from the latter, and the man performs his from the former. Therefore, by their very nature their offices are divergent, yet in their successive series they are conjunctive. [2] It is thought by many that women can perform the offices of men if only they are initiated into them from their earliest age, as are boys. They can indeed be initiated into the exercise of them, but not into the judgment on which the right performance of the offices inwardly depends. Therefore, in matters of judgment, women who have been initiated into the offices of men are constrained to consult men; and then, if they are in the enjoyment of their own right, they choose from their counsels what favors their own love. [3] By some it is also supposed that women are equally able to elevate the sight of their understanding into the sphere of light in which men are, and to view things in the same altitude. This opinion has been induced upon them by the writings of some learned authoresses. But in the spiritual world, when these writings were explored in the presence of those authoresses, they were found to be works, not of judgment and wisdom, but of genius and eloquence; and works which proceed from these two, by reason of the elegance and fine style of the verbal composition, appear as though sublime and erudite but only before those who call all ingenuity wisdom. [4] That men, on the other hand, cannot enter into the offices proper to women and rightly perform them, is because they cannot enter into the affections of women, these being entirely distinct from the affections of men. Because from creation and hence by nature, the affections and perceptions of the male sex are so distinctive, therefore, among the statutes given to the sons of Israel was also this, The garment of a man shall not be upon a woman, neither the garment of a woman upon a man, for it is an abomination. Deut. 22: 5. The reason was, because in the spiritual world all are clothed according to their affections, and the two affections, that of woman and that of man, can be united only as between two, and never in a single person.