375. There are also several countries, which more than others labor
under this weakness of jealousy: in these the wives are imprisoned, are
tyrannically shut out from conversation with men, are prevented from
even looking at them through the windows, by blinds drawn down, and are
terrified by threats of death if the cherished suspicion shall appear
well grounded; not to mention other hardships which the wives in those
countries suffer from their jealous husbands. There are two causes of
this jealousy; one is, an imprisonment and suffocation of the thoughts
in the spiritual things of the church; the other is, an inward desire of
revenge. As to the first cause,--the imprisonment and suffocation of the
thoughts in the spiritual things of the church, its operation and effect
may be concluded from what has been proved above,--that everyone has
conjugial love according to the state of the church with him, and as the
church is from the Lord, that that love is solely from the Lord, n. 130,
131; when therefore, instead of the Lord, living and deceased men are
approached and invoked, it follows, that the state of the church is such
that conjugial love cannot act in unity with it; and the less so while
the mind is terrified into that worship by the threats of a dreadful
prison: hence it comes to pass, that the thoughts, together with the
expressions of them in conversation, are violently seized and
suffocated; and when they are suffocated, there is an influx of such
things as are either contrary to the church, or imaginary in favor of
it; the consequence of which is, heat in favor of harlots and cold
towards a married partner; from which two principles prevailing together
in one subject, such an unconquerable fire of jealousy flows forth.
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