ABOUT THIS BOOKLove in Marriage (also translated under the titles Marriage Love and Conjugial Love) is one of the most challenging works written by Swedish scientist and visionary Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772). It is not only about marriage as a social institution—both in the ways that it works and the ways that it can be a source of strife—but about the spiritual implications of marriage and the ways that two human beings can form, continue, and deepen their emotional and spiritual connection in this world and the next. While much of the commentary about marriage and romantic relationships is best understood in the context of eighteenth-century Swedish culture, the spiritual commentary sheds important light on the dualism that pervades Swedenborg’s theology and his stress on the importance of love for others. David Gladish’s contemporary translation, originally published in 1992, remains one of the most vibrant renditions of this work in the English language.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHYDavid Gladish is a scholar, writer, and translator who has had a lifelong interesting the theology of Swedenborg. Gladish taught rhetoric and literature for seven years at the University of Illinois, where he received a Ph.D., then taught for eleven years at Franklin College before turning to other work. Besides contributing about a hundred essays, articles, an poems in periodicals, Dr. Gladish has edited Sire William Davenant’s Gondibert for Oxford University Press an has translated Swedenborg’s Doctrine of Faith for the General Church Press.