200.
XV. THAT IN THE MARRIAGE OF ONE MAN WITH ONE WIFE BETWEEN WHOM THERE IS LOVE TRULY CONJUGIAL, THE WIFE BECOMES MORE AND MORE A WIFE, AND THE HUSBAND MORE AND MORE A HUSBAND. That love truly conjugial
conjoins two more and more into one man may be seen above (nos. 178, 179); and because the wife becomes a wife from conjunction with her husband and according to it, likewise the husband from conjunction
with his wife; and because love truly conjugial endures to eternity, it follows that the wife becomes more and more a wife, and the husband more and more a husband. The reason is, because in a marriage
of love truly conjugial, each becomes an ever more interior man; for that love opens the interiors of their minds, and as these are opened man becomes more and more a man. To become more a man
is, on the part of the wife, to become more a wife, and on the part of the husband, to become more a husband. I have heard from angels, that a wife becomes more and more a wife as her husband becomes
more and more a husband, but not the reverse, for rarely if ever is it lacking that a chaste wife loves her husband. What is lacking is love in return on the part of the husband; and this is lacking on
account of there being no elevation of wisdom, which alone receives a wife's love. Respecting this wisdom, see nos. 130, 163-65. This, however, is said of marriages on earth.