59. Nevertheless, truly conjugial love is so rare that people do not know what it is like, and scarcely that it exists. This is because the state of happy feelings before the wedding afterwards turns into a state of indifference as these feelings become no longer felt. The reasons for this change in state are too many to be presented here, but they will be presented in a later chapter, where the reasons for states of coldness, separations and divorces are disclosed in turn. 1 It will be seen from these that in most people today, the image of conjugial love referred to above is so extinguished - and with it, knowledge of this love - that people do not even know what it is like, and scarcely that it exists.
People know that every person is merely physical at birth, and that from being physical he becomes more and more deeply natural, and thus rational, and finally spiritual. The reason for such a progressive development is that the physical element is the soil, so to speak, in which natural, rational and spiritual qualities are planted in turn. A person thus becomes more and more human.
[2] Almost the same sort of thing happens when one enters marriage. A person then becomes a more complete human being, because he is united with a partner with whom he may act as one person. In the first state, however, this is reflected in a kind of image, as mentioned before. In similar fashion he then starts from the physical element and progresses into the natural, only this time in respect to married life and so union into one.
People who in this state love the physical, natural aspects, and the rational aspects only on account of these, cannot be united with their partner as though into one, except in respect to these external aspects. When the external aspects then fade, the inward ones are invaded by coldness, which takes away the delights of this love, driving them first from the mind and so from the body, and afterwards from the body and so from the mind. And this finally reaches the point that nothing remains of their memory of the early state of their marriage, nor do they consequently retain any concept of it.
Now because this is what happens in the case of most people today, it is plain that people do not know what truly conjugial love is like, and scarcely that it exists.
It is different in the case of people who are spiritual. In their case, the first state of marriage is an introduction to continuing states of happiness, which advance as the spiritual rationality of the mind and consequently the natural sensuality of the body in one partner join and unite with these same qualities in the other. But people like this are rare.
Note a piè di pagina:
1. See nos. 234ff.
