The Law of Marriages

Selection from Arcana Cœlestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

All the laws of truth and right flow from celestial beginnings, or from the order of life of the celestial man. For the whole heaven is a celestial man because the Lord alone is a celestial man, and as He is the all in all of heaven and the celestial man, they are thence called celestial.

As every law of truth and right descends from celestial beginnings, or from the order of life of the celestial man, so in an especial manner does the law of marriages.

It is the celestial (or heavenly) marriage from and according to which all marriages on earth must be derived; and this marriage is such that there is one Lord and one heaven, or one church whose head is the Lord. The law of marriages thence derived is that there shall be one husband and one wife, and when this is the case they represent the celestial marriage, and are an exemplar of the celestial man.

This law was not only revealed to the men of the Most Ancient Church, but was also inscribed on their internal man, wherefore at that time a man had but one wife, and they constituted one house. But when their posterity ceased to be internal men, and became external, they married a plurality of wives. Because the men of the Most Ancient Church in their marriages represented the celestial marriage, conjugial love was to them a kind of heaven and heavenly happiness, but when the Church declined they had no longer any perception of happiness in conjugial love, but in pleasure from a number, which is a delight of the external man. This is called by the Lord "hardness of heart" on account of which they were permitted by Moses to marry a plurality of wives, as the Lord Himself teaches:

For the hardness of your heart Moses wrote you this precept, but from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they twain shall be one flesh; wherefore they are no more twain but one flesh; what therefore God hath joined together let not man put asunder (Mark 10:5-9).

(Arcana Cœlestia 162)

Heavenly Marriages Induce Forms on the Souls and Minds of their Partner

Selection from Conjugial Love ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

In the natural world it is not so apparent that marriages induce other forms on souls and minds, for here souls and minds are enclosed in a material body, through which the mind rarely shines. Today, moreover, far more than of old, men learn from infancy onward to induce expressions on the face by which they profoundly conceal the mind's affections. For this reason forms of the mind before and after marriage are not known apart. In the spiritual world, however, it is manifest (even in such men) that the forms of soul and mind after marriage differ from what they were before marriage. For spirits and angels, who are nothing but minds and souls in human form, are then stripped of the coverings which were composed of elements from water and earth and of exhalations thence spread on the air. With these removed, the forms of the minds, such as they were within the body, are seen, and it is clearly observable then that the married have certain forms, and the unmarried other forms.

In general, married partners have an inner beauty of countenance, the man receiving from the wife the agreeable glow of her love, and the wife from the man the shining brightness of his wisdom. For the two partners are united in soul. In each appears also a human fullness. This is in heaven, for there are no marriages anywhere else; below heaven [not from heavenly order] there are only matings, which are formed and severed.

(Conjugial Love 192)

Love and Charity

Selection from Arcana Cœlestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

The Divine with those who have faith in the Lord is love and charity. By Love is meant love to the Lord; by Charity," love toward the neighbor. Love to the Lord cannot possibly be separated from love toward the neighbor; for the Lord's love is toward the universal human race, which He wills to save eternally and to adjoin wholly to Himself, so that not one of them may perish. He therefore who has love to the Lord, has the Lord's love, and thereby can do no otherwise than love his neighbor.

(from Arcana Cœlestia 2023)