<p>5:28 <i>Thus husbands ought also to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loves his own wife loves himself</i>- This and :29 are not an appeal to selfishness, as if men ought to love their wives because actually they are loving themselves by so doing. The Lord Jesus joins together husband and wife as one flesh (:21). The husband who is willingly part of this process will therefore not separate his own agendas and aims from those of his wife. Love of the partner becomes love of self in that the two are joined as one by the Lord's process of binding the two parties together.</p>