על החוקים לפרטיהם, ספר ב ז׳On the Special Laws, Book II 7
א׳
1[29] Such is the sum and substance of these ordinances taken literally. But we may also allegorize such parts of the subject as admit of being studied in a figurative sense. We should know, then, that nature’s right reasoning has the functions both of a father and a husband, though the conceptions attached to each are different. It acts as a husband because it deposits the seed of virtue in the soul as in a fertile field. It acts as a father because its nature is to beget good intentions and noble and worthy actions, and then to foster its offspring with the water of the truths which education and wisdom abundantly supply.
ב׳
2[30] The mind is likened on the one hand to a virgin, on the other to a woman either in widowhood, or still united to a husband. As a virgin it keeps itself pure and uncorrupted from the malignant passions, pleasures and desires and griefs and fears. Over this virgin mind the father who begat it has assumed authority. But when, like a wife, it dwells with virtuous reasoning as its worthy mate, that same reasoning promises to take charge of it and impregnates it husband-like with thoughts of highest excellence.
ג׳
3[31] But the soul, which is bereaved of its birth-tie with sound sense or its marriage-tie with right reasoning, is widowed of all that is most excellent and, deserted by wisdom because it has chosen a life of guilt, must stand bound by the decision which it has made to its own undoing. It has none to heal its errors, no reasoning of wisdom, either to live with it as its husband or to act as its father and begetter.