of divorce and to put her away; and the
disciples said, If the case of a man with his wife be so it is not
expedient to marry_," xix. 3-10. Since therefore the covenant of
marriage is for life, it follows that the appearances of love and
friendship between married partners are necessary. That matrimony, when
contracted, must continue till the decease of one of the parties, is
grounded in the divine law, consequently also in rational law, and
thence in civil law: in the divine law, because, as said above, it is
not lawful to put away a wife and marry another, except for whoredom; in
rational law, because it is founded upon spiritual, for divine law and
rational are one law; from both these together, or by the latter from
the former, it may be abundantly seen what enormities and destructions
of societies would result from the dissolving of marriage, or the
putting away of wives, at the good pleasure of the husbands, before
death. Those enormities and destructions of societies may in some
measure be seen in the MEMORABLE RELATION respecting the origin of
conjugial love, discussed by the spirits assembled from the nine
kingdoms, n. 103-115; to which there is no need of adding further
reasons. But these causes do not operate to prevent the permission of
separations grounded in their proper causes, respecting which see above,
n. 252-254; and also of concubinage, respecting which see the second
part of this work.

277. VI. IN CASE OF MATRIMONY IN WHICH THE INTERNAL AFFECTIONS DO NOT
CONJOIN, THERE ARE EXTERNAL AFFECTIONS WHICH ASSUME A SEMBLANCE OF THE
INTERNAL AND TEND TO CONSOLIDATE. By internal affections we mean the
mutual inclinations which influence the mind of each of the parties from
heaven; whereas by external affections we mean the inclinations which
influence the mind of each of the parties from the world. The latter
affections or inclinations indeed equally belong to the mind, but they
occupy its inferior regions, whereas the former occupy the superior: but
since both have their allotted seat in the mind, it may possibly be
believed that they are alike and agree; yet although they are not alike,
still they can appear so: in some cases they exist as agreements, and in
some as insinuating semblances. There is a certain communion implanted
in each of the parties from the earliest time of the marriage-covenant,
which, notwithstanding their disagreement in minds (_animis_) still
remains implanted; as a communion of pos