MARRIAGE, NOW AND TO ETERNITY MARRIAGE, NOW AND TO ETERNITYSexual love between men and women can become a lovely and wonderful thing, but it can also be the cause of a great deal of unhappiness. A committed relationship between one man and one woman in which the two strive to love the Lord and each other is the most important relationship in the world. Such a marriage of love truly conjugial is the source of much happiness in this world and also in the world to come forever.
Such a marriage gives a positive environment to the children that are born in this marriage. In the world of today we can hear a great deal on TV and radio about the sexual pain of men and women. We can learn how such pain is not limited to adults, but also affects children. On talk shows we observe the confessions of such pain, and we can analyze the causes of such pain. Make your own observations and see if you do not agree that selfish short sighted behavior is the cause of most unhappiness.
The most important mission of the New Church is therefore the establishment of love truly conjugial on this earth. The most important tool in this establishment is the work on Conjugial Love. You can read this work in the unarbridged version in various translations.
If you want to attain a marriage of love truly conjugial you first of all need to pray for it and long for it. When you do not have it as your goal and you do not have a strong desire for it, you will not be able to reach it. The second step is to avoid all actions that would harm such a relationship.
If you are married, you will need to avoid all adultery. By adultery is meant having sexual intercourse with a person other than your married partner. Adultery harms the other partner and the marriage relationship, but it also harms the partner who commits adultery.
If you are not married, you will first of all need to avoid sexual intercourse with a married person. You are thereby harming the marriage relationship and the married partner who is not involved in the adultery. Adultery with one partner deeply hurts the feelings of the other partner. If you were married and this happened to you, then you would be hurt. Enlightened self interest tells that if you do not want something done to you, you should not do it to another person.
The third step is to avoid all violence and deprivation of freedom with
a person of the other sex. In marriage two people are in a very intimate
relationship. Intimacy means vulnerability. The more vulnerable we are
the more we can be hurt. Such hurt will then keep us from becoming more
vulnerable and more intimate.
