Conjugial Love Study
in the Academy Girls School
Kira R. Schadegg, Principal
D
uring the 2010 school year a group of Girls School faculty members began
reading Conjugial Love with a view to making it more accessible to the
girls we teach. Little did we know that it would take seven years to complete
the project!
It took two years to work our way through the text of Conjugial Love.
While we were reading that volume it became apparent to us that we needed
to look at other recent works on the topic. We read Master’s theses from Kay
Alden, Nina Dewees and Hilary Bryntesson. We also read Growth of the Female
Mind - Sincerity and Severity by Dr. Soni Werner and The Conjugial Culture by
Alaina Johns Mabaso.
Once we completed the reading our next task was to synthesize and distill
the copious notes masterfully recorded by the Rev. Eric Carswell. Vina Parker
and Gwenda Cowley made the first attempt at this distillation process. After
their summer of work we came back together and worked through a lengthy
process of grouping information and eventually settled on four main topics:
1. Their relationship with the Lord
2. Their relationship with the faculty
3. The exploration and development of themselves and their individual
feminine gifts
4. Healthy relationships with others, including the opposite sex
The final stage was to manage serious editing, as well as putting the
concepts into language that would be understandable to the adolescent mind.
Hilary Bryntesson took on this task, editing the information in sections.
Hilly has a marvelous way of forming New Church concepts with words that
resonate with teenagers. After each editing session the committee would meet
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