Chapter 10

Since this is so, how will a woman have room for another husband, who is, even to futurity, in the possession of her own?  (Moreover, we speak to each sex, even if our discourse address itself but to the one; inasmuch as one discipline is incumbent [on both].)  She will have one in spirit, one in flesh.  This will be adultery, the conscious affection of one woman for two men.  If the one has been disjoined from her flesh, but remains in her heart—in that place where even cogitation without carnal contact achieves beforehand both adultery by concupiscence, and matrimony by volition—he is to this hour her husband, possessing the very thing which is the mean whereby he became so—her mind, namely, in which withal, if another shall find a habitation, this will be a crime.  Besides, excluded he is not, if he has withdrawn from viler carnal commerce.  A more honourable husband is he, in proportion as he is become more pure.