mutually and reciprocally. The love of dominion in marriage destroys this; for he who domineers wishes that his will should be in the other, and none of the other's reciprocally in himself. Hence there is nothing mutual, consequently no reciprocal communication of one's love and its delight with the other. Yet this communication and thence conjunction is the interior delight itself in marriage, which is called blessedness. The love of dominion completely extinguishes this blessedness, and with it all celestial and spiritual love. . . When one wills or loves what the other does, both enjoy freedom; for all freedom is the offspring of love. But when there is dominion, neither is free. One is a slave, and so is the other that exercises dominion, because he is led as a slave by the lust of domineering."—H. H. n. 380.
Marriage in the heavens being the conjunction of two minds into one, can exist only between one man and one woman. And so completely are their souls wedded, that their thoughts and affections never wander from each other. The husband never thinks of any female but his own wife with other feelings than those of charity and mutual love. If he should, that moment the blessedness of conjugial love would depart, and darkness would invade the souls of both. The wife would experience a dreadful sinking at the heart, as if the light of her life were about to be extinguished. And a similar result would follow, should the wife think fondly of any other man than her own husband.
"You two are one," said Swedenborg to a married couple in heaven. "And the man answered. We are one. Her life is in me, and mine in her. We are two bodies, but one soul. The union between us is like that between the two tents in the breast, called heart and
