As all the delights that man has in the natural world are turned into correspondent delights in the spiritual world, so are the delights of the love of marriage and the delights of the love of adultery.  The love of marriage is represented in the spiritual world as a virgin, whose beauty is such as to inspire the beholder with the charms of life; while the love of adultery is represented in the spiritual world by an old woman, whose deformity is such as to inspire in the beholder a coldness and death to every charm of life.  Therefore in the heavens the angels are beautiful according to the quality of marriage love in them, and in the hells the spirits are deformed according to the quality of the love of adultery in them.  In a word, the angels of heaven have life in their faces, in the movements of the body, and in their speech, in the measure of their marriage love, while the spirits of hell have death in their faces in the measure of their love of adultery.

In the spiritual world the delights of marriage love are represented to the sense by odors from fruits and flowers of various kinds, while the delights of the love of adultery are there represented to the sense by the stenches from excrements and putridities of various kinds.  Moreover, the delights of the love of adultery are actually turned into such things, since all things pertaining to adultery are spiritual filth.  Therefore from the brothels in the hells stenches pour forth that excite vomiting. (A.E., n. 986.)

How holy in themselves, that is, from creation, marriages are can be seen from the fact that they are the nurseries of the human race; and as the angelic heaven is from the human race they are also the nurseries of heaven; consequently by marriages not only the earths but also the heavens are filled with inhabitants; and as the end of the entire creation is the human race, and thus heaven, where the Divine itself may dwell as in its own and as it were in itself, and as the procreation of mankind according to Divine order is accomplished through marriages, it is clear how holy marriages are in themselves, that is, from creation, and thus how holy they should be esteemed.  It is true that the earth might be filled with inhabitants by fornications and adulteries as well as by marriages, but not heaven; and for the reason that hell is from adulteries but heaven from marriages.

Hell is from adulteries because adultery is from the marriage of evil and falsity, from which hell in the whole complex is called adultery; while heaven is from marriages because marriage is from the marriage of good and truth, from which heaven in its whole complex is called a marriage.  That is called adultery where its love, which is called a love of adultery, reigns, whether it be within wedlock or apart from it, and that is called marriage where its love, which is called marriage love, reigns.