Conjugial Love (Acton) n. 168

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168. X. THAT THIS PERCEPTION IS THE WIFE'S WISDOM, AND THAT IT IS NOT POSSIBLE WITH THE MAN; NOR IS THE MAN'S RATIONAL WISDOM POSSIBLE WITH THE WIFE. This follows from the difference between the masculine and the feminine. It is masculine to perceive from the understanding, and feminine to perceive from love; and the understanding perceives things which are above the body and beyond the world, it being to these that rational and spiritual sight extends; while love does not go beyond what it feels. When it does go beyond, it does this by drawing on that conjunction with the male understanding which was established from creation; for understanding pertains to light, and love to heat, and that which pertains to light is seen, while that which pertains to heat is felt. From this it is manifest, that because of the universal difference which exists between the masculine and the feminine, the wife's wisdom is not possible with the man, nor the man's [rational] wisdom with the wife; nor is man's moral wisdom possible with women so far as it partakes of his rational wisdom.


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