knowledge; it is their destiny if they are to become wives, both in name and
in reality. Indeed, “men endowed with a spiritual perception love women who
have an affection for truths.” (Ibid. 8994:4)
The Predominance Explained
So what does it mean, then, when we are told that in women the will
predominates and that in men the intellect predominates? Here, I believe, is
the answer:
When a man and a woman marry, they do not instantly achieve the
promised union of souls and minds. (Married Love 156[r]ff.) Only gradually
do they become one, as the husband becomes more and more a husband,
and as the wife becomes more and more a wife. (Ibid. 200) And this occurs,
if at all, in the measure and to the degree that the husband adopts his wife’s
affections and loves and allows his insights and judgments to be qualified by
those affections and loves, and in the measure and to the degree that the wife
at the same time adopts her husband’s insights and judgments and allows
her affections and loves to be guided by those insights and judgments. It is a
dynamic relation which draws them ever closer together. Only thus is a maiden
transformed into a wife in the true sense of the word, and a youth conversely
into a husband. (Ibid. 159, 163, 165, 199)
The reason is that, although both husband and wife possess a will and
an intellect, it is only the affections and loves of her will and the insights and
judgments of his intellect that can combine to form the marriage. Of course
the affections and loves of his will enter into that marriage, but they do so only
indirectly through his intellect. And of course the insights and judgments of
her intellect enter into the marriage, but they do so only indirectly through
her will. Two intellects will not marry. They may at times agree, but they will
not become one. Neither will two wills marry. They may at times cooperate,
but they will not become one. “That is why two men together also spar with
each other with endless arguments, like two athletes boxing, and two women
sometimes as well, with endless insistence on their own wishes, like two
marionettes battling with their fists.” (Ibid. 55:6)
Just as two magnetic north poles will not unite, but repel each other, and
as two magnetic south poles will not unite, but repel each other, so in marriage
it is a common experience for the couple’s two intellects to argue and fight and
for their two wills to struggle for dominance and control. It is only the wisdom
of his intellect and the affections of her will that can find common ground and
eventually unite.
Moreover, in a marriage of true married love, this union gradually grows
to the point that it becomes no longer possible to distinguish between her will
and his, or between his intellect and hers. For eventually the husband comes
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