Conjugial Love (Rogers) n. 191

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191. (6) After marriage, the states of life in married partners change and progress according to the bonds formed between their minds by conjugial love. In each partner, man and wife, the changes of state and progressions of state after marriage depend on the kind of conjugial love they have, being thus changes and progressions that tend either to join or to estrange their minds; and the reason is that conjugial love not only varies but also swings back and forth in the partners. It varies in partners who inwardly love each other, for although it goes through cycles in which it is interrupted in them, nevertheless it constantly retains its warmth within. This love swings back and forth, however, in partners who love each other only outwardly; in them this love goes through cycles in which it is interrupted, not owing to the same causes, but as a result of 2alternating states of warmth and coldness. The reason for these differences is that in the latter case the body plays the leading part, and its state of heat wells up and forcibly carries off the lower parts of the mind into confederation with it. But in the case of people who love each other inwardly, the mind plays the leading part, and it brings the body into a confederation with it. It seems as though love ascends from the body into the soul, because as soon as the body lights on attractions, these enter through the doors of the eyes, so to speak, into the mind, thus through the entryway of the sight into the thoughts and there immediately into the love. But nevertheless, love descends from the mind and acts on the lower parts according to the way they are directed. A lascivious mind acts lasciviously, therefore, and a chaste mind chastely; and in the latter case the mind directs and governs the body, whereas in the preceding case it is directed and governed by the body.


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