hildren; for everything delights their minds, since heaven
with its joy flows into every particular of their lives. For the same
reason marriage love is represented in heaven by the most beautiful
objects. I have seen it represented by a maiden of indescribable
beauty encompassed with a bright white cloud. It is said that the
angels in heaven have all their beauty from marriage love. Affections
and thought flowing from that love are represented by diamond-like
auras with scintillations as if from carbuncles and rubies, which are
attended by delights that affect the interiors of the mind. In a
word, heaven itself is represented in marriage love, because heaven
with the angels is the conjunction of good and truth, and it is this
conjunction that makes marriage love.

382. [b.] Marriages in heaven differ from marriages on the earth in
that the procreation of offspring is another purpose of marriages on
the earth, but not of marriages in heaven, since in heaven the
procreation of good and truth takes the place of procreation of
offspring. The former takes the place of the latter because marriage
in heaven is a marriage of good and truth (as has been shown above);
and as in that marriage good and truth and their conjunction are
loved above all things so these are what are propagated by marriages
in heaven. And because of this, in the Word births and generations
signify spiritual births and generations, which are births and
generations of good and truth; mother and father signify truth
conjoined to good, which is what procreates; sons and daughters
signify the truths and goods that are procreated; and sons-in-law and
daughters-in-law conjunction of these, and so on.{1} All this makes
clear that marriages in heaven are not like marriages on earth. In
heaven marryings are spiritual, and cannot properly be called
marryings, but conjunctions of minds from the conjunction of good and
truth. But on earth there are marryings, because these are not of the
spirit alone but also of the flesh. And as there are no marryings in
heaven, consorts there are not called husband and wife; but from the
angelic idea of the joining of two minds into one, each consort
designates the other by a name signifying one's own, mutually and
reciprocally. This shows how the Lord's words in regard to marrying
and giving in marriage (Luke 20:35, 36), are to be understood.

{Footnote 1} Conceptions, pregnancies, births, and generations
signify those th