Conjugial Love (Rogers) n. 150

Previous Number Next Number Next Translation See Latin 

150. (8) Chastity cannot be ascribed to little children or boys and girls, nor to adolescents of either sex before they feel a love for the opposite sex stirring in them. The reason is that chastity and unchasteness are terms that apply only to states of marriage and things which have to do with marriage (see above, no. 139). And in the case of persons who know nothing about conjugial matters, there is no ascribing of chastity; for it is as nothing to them, and people do not have any affection for or any thought about what is nothing to them. After that state when chastity is as nothing, however, something else arises, when the first impulse towards marriage is felt, which is a love for the opposite sex. Adolescents of both sexes are commonly called chaste before they feel a love for the opposite sex stirring in them, but this is owing to people's ignorance of what chastity is.


This page is part of the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg

© 2000-2001 The Academy of the New Church