Week 3    Day 5

    Listen:

The Wisdom of Wives

CL 208. While I was in meditation upon the secrets of conjugial love stored up with wives, a golden rain appeared again as described above [no. 155], and I remembered that it fell upon a hall in the east where three conjugial loves dwelt, that is, three married pairs who tenderly loved each other. Seeing this, as if invited by the sweetness of meditation on that love, I hurried there. And as I approached, the rain from being golden became purple, then scarlet, and when I came near it was opaline like dew. I knocked, and the door was opened, and I said to the attendant, “Please tell the husbands that the one who came before with an angel is here again, asking to be permitted to enter for a conversation.” The attendant returned and signified the assent of the husbands, and I went in. The three husbands with their wives were together in an open court, and on being greeted, kindly returned the greeting. And I asked the wives whether the white dove appeared afterwards at the window [as before, described in no. 155].

They said, “It did this very day, and it spread its wings too, from which we anticipated your coming and your request for the disclosure of one more secret about conjugial love.”

I asked, “Why do you say one, and yet I have come here to learn many?”

[2] They replied, “They are secrets; and some so far transcend the wisdom of you men that the understanding of your thought cannot apprehend them. You exult over us on account of your wisdom, but we do not exult over you on account of ours; and yet ours excels yours, in that it enters into your inclinations and affections, and sees, perceives, and feels them. You know nothing at all about the inclinations and affections of your love, although it is from these and according to them that your understanding thinks, and from these and according to them, therefore, that you are wise. And yet wives know them in their husbands so well that they see them in their faces, hear them in the tones of the speech out of their mouths, they even feel them on their breasts, arms, and cheeks. But from the zeal of love for your happiness and at the same time for our own, we pretend not to know them. And yet we moderate them so prudently that we follow whatever is to the liking, pleasure, and will of our husbands, by allowing and enduring it, and redirecting only when possible, but never compelling.”

[3] I asked, “How is it that you have this wisdom?”

They answered, “It is inherent in us from creation, and thence from birth. Our husbands liken it to instinct; but we say it is of the Divine Providence, to the end that men may be made happy by their wives. We have heard from our husbands that the Lord wills that the male man shall act from freedom according to reason; and that therefore, since his freedom has regard to his inclinations and affections, the Lord Himself moderates his freedom from within, and by means of his wife from without; and that thus He forms the man with his wife into an angel of heaven. And besides, love changes its essence and becomes not that love if it is compelled.

“But we will speak of these things more openly. We are moved to this—that is, to prudence in moderating the inclinations and affections of our husbands, so discreet that they appear to themselves to act from freedom according to their own reason— because we have delight from their love, and love nothing more than that they shall have delight from our delights. But if these [feelings] become matters of indifference to them, they also begin to fade with us.”

[4] That said, one of the wives went into her bedroom and on returning she said, “My dove still flutters its wings, which is a sign that we may disclose more.” And they added, “We have observed various changes of the inclinations and affections of men. For example, they are cold toward their wives when husbands think vain thoughts against the Lord and the church. They are cold when in pride on account of their own intelligence. They are cold when they look upon other women from lust. They are cold when they are reminded by their wives of love, and many other [situations] besides. And they are cold with varied cold. We observe this from a shrinking back of the sense from their eyes, ears, and body at the presence of our senses.

“From these few examples you can see that we know better than men whether it is well or ill with them. If they are cold to their wives, it is ill with them, and if they are warm towards their wives, it is well with them. Wives are therefore continually turning over in their minds ways for their men to be warm to them and not cold, and they do this with a keenness of perception incomprehensible to men.”

[5] After these words a sound was heard as if the dove were moaning; and then the wives said, “This is an indication to us that we are eager to divulge more secret arcana, but it is not permitted to tell them. Perhaps you will disclose to men the secrets you have heard?”

I answered, “I intend to do this. What harm can come from it?”

After conversing together about it the wives said, “Publish them if you wish. The power of persuasion that wives possess is not hidden from us. For they will say to their husbands, ‘That man is fooling you. They are fables. He is jesting from appearances and the usual nonsense of men. Do not believe him, believe us. We know that you are the lovers and we are the obedient ones.’ Publish them then if you wish. But husbands will not depend on your mouth, but on the mouths of their wives, which they kiss.”

previous		next