“ The love of man and wife is a voluntary compact in which the one who proves weak is guilty only of perfidy; but when the wife is a mother her duty is a higher one, since nature has intrusted her with a race. If she fails, then she is cowardly, worthless, infamous. ”
Guy de Maupassant, Pierre and Jean (1888). copy citation
| Author | Guy de Maupassant |
|---|---|
| Source | Pierre and Jean |
| Topic | duty love |
| Date | 1888 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | Translated by Clara Bell |
| Weblink | https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Pierre_and_Jean_(Bell,_1902) |
Context
“She owed to him to be without reproach, as all mothers owe it to their children. If the fury that boiled within him verged on hatred it was that he felt her to be even more guilty towards him than toward his father.
The love of man and wife is a voluntary compact in which the one who proves weak is guilty only of perfidy; but when the wife is a mother her duty is a higher one, since nature has intrusted her with a race. If she fails, then she is cowardly, worthless, infamous.
"I do not care," said Roland suddenly, stretching out his legs under the table, as he did every evening while he sipped his glass of black-currant brandy. "You may do worse than live idle when you have a snug little income.”
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