Leo Tolstoy

“ Men is called to serve mankind in multifarious works, and he loves these works while he does them; woman is called to serve through her children and she cannot but love these her children, while she is tending them -until they are three, seven, ten years old. In this I see the perfect equality between man and woman according to their common calling to serve God and man, notwithstanding the difference in the form of their service. The equality is also established in the fact that the one is as important as the other, that the one is unimaginable without the other ”

“ Having heard the Christian teaching of the ideal we cannot act as if we were ignorant, and replace it by external ordinances. The Christian teaching of the ideal has been revealed to man just because it can guide him in his present stage of development. Humanity has already outgrown the period of external religious ordinances; no one believes in them anymore.
The Christian teaching is the only teaching that can guide mankind. We cannot, we must not, replace Christ's ideal by external rules; but we must firmly keep this ideal before us in all its purity, and above all we must believe in it. ”

“ No one, it is true, directly disputes these considerations, which affirm that depravity is unnecessary before as well as after marriage, that one should not artificially prevent childbirth, nor make toys of children, nor esteem physical union above everything else -in short, no one disputes that chastity is better than depravity. But, it is said, "If abstinence be better than marriage, it is evident men should follow the better course. But if they do, then the human race will cease -and the ideal of the human race cannot be extinction." ”

“ So here I have written for you these thoughts as they came to me, which your letter evoked in me, I conclude them with the most hearty advice of an old man to a youth striving after good and truth: guard your purity with all your strength, struggle with temptation, and in no case lose hear, and don't slacken the bridle. You will ask how to struggle? ”

“ So that I advise you, and both of you, first to think and live as seriously as possible, for only by this means will you ascertain whether you are indeed advancing along the same road, and whether or not it is well for you to join hands; and at the same time, if you are sincere, to prepare for yourselves a future aim. The object of your life should be not the joy of married life, but by your life to introduce into the world more love and truth. And marriage is meant for the purpose of helping each other in the attainment of this object. ”

“ The ideal woman, as I conceive her, will be the one who having assimilated the highest life-conception, life-faith that she is acquainted with, abandons herself to the feminine instincts irresistibly implanted in her mind, and gives birth to, rears and educates, the greatest possible number of children capable of working for mankind according to the life-conception she has assimilated. ”

“ If one only understand well and clearly that sexual intercourse is a moral fall and a sin, and that union with one woman is not, as is now thought, a matter repairable by marriage with another, but is itself an irrevocable union, representing redemption from the sin, then it is clear that only with such a view can the chastity of mankind augment. ”

“ I think that self-mutilation is as much a sin as physical union for the sake of pleasure, just as I think that it is equally sinful to overeat or to exhaust oneself by starvation or poison. That food for the body which enables man to serve his fellows is lawful, and that sexual union which continues the race is lawful. Eunuchs are right when they say that sex relations with one's wife is immoral when it occurs without spiritual love, and only for gratification, and therefore not at the right physical periods, and that this is adultery ”

“ The conventional opinion about marriage is well known: "If people marry without sufficient means the consequences will be children, destitution and mutual boredom in a year or two... in ten years, quarrels, fault-finding, hell." In all this conventional opinion is quite right, and prophesies correctly, unless those who have married have some other unique aim unknown to their judges. And this aim not a mental one, not accepted intellectually, but representing the light of life, the attainment of which one desires intensely, above everything else. ”

“ The proof that public opinion is in the hands of women is that not only is the arrangement of habitations, of food, determined by women, women direct the expenditure of wealth, and, therefore, of human labor; the success of works of art, books, even the nomination of rulers is determined by public opinion, and public opinion is determined by women. Some one has said that it is men who should strive for emancipation not women. ”

“ Man is called to fulfill various works, but all his efforts, his labor (to grow corn or to make guns) , his mental work (to alleviate the life of men, or count money) , his religious activity (to unite men, or sing Te-Deums) , all are useful and fruitful only then when they are accomplished in the name of the highest truth accessible to him. So also with woman's calling: her giving birth to, nursing, rearing children, will be useful to mankind when she brings up not merely children for her own pleasure, but future servants of humanity ”

“ When a man knows no other welfare than personal pleasure for himself alone, love -"being in love" -appears a step upward; but having experienced the feeling of love to God and to one's neighbor, having become Christian, be it in ever so feeble a degree if only the feeling be sincere, one cannot help regarding "being in love," from this higher position, as a feeling from which it is desirable to become free. And why could you not be content with this Christian, brotherly love? And therefore, pardon me, what you say about your love to her supporting you in purity is an insult to woman. ”

“ He who has not fallen must use all his powers in order not to fall, because for him who has fallen it is incomparably more difficult, ten times, a hundred times, more difficult, to struggle with lust than for him who has not fallen. But to struggle, i.e., to strive after chastity, is necessary always and under all conditions (for one married as well as not married) . You doubt whether this struggle is indispensable. I understand your doubt because you are surrounded by people who assert with confidence that this struggle is unnecessary and contrary to nature. ”

“ One should unite the service of men with the service of one's family, not mechanically by distributing one's time between the two, but chemically, by attaching to the care of one's family, the education of one's family, the education of one's children, the ideal significance of service to mankind. Marriage, true marriage, which realizes itself in the birth of children, is , in its true meaning, only an indirect service of God, a service of God through one's children. This is why marriage, conjugal love, is always experienced by us as a certain relief, peace. ”

“ She is quite right when she says that exclusive love, far from being love towards God, hinders it. But this exclusive love, the one you feel towards her, is a fact, and a positive fact, with which one cannot help reckoning any more than with the presence of a body and the personal characteristics which we cannot abolish. But while recognizing the existence of this fact, one must act so as to accept all that is good in it and throw aside all that is bad. The good is the consciousness of the lovableness of the object of our affection ”

“ Childbirth, and the rearing and feeding of children, abolishes the greater part of the weight and wrongfulness of these relations, and besides, for the long periods of pregnancy and feeding, liberates from them. To argue whether childbirth is a good thing or not, is not our business. He who has established this redemption for the sin of the transgression of purity knew what He was about. And, -pardon me if what I say appears unpleasant to you, -in what you say about the birth of children rendering one more and more nervous, you manifest an unkind, egotistic trait. ”

“ For me, in my egotism, it is sad to think that I have lived my life like a brute, and that I cannot now retrieve it,-sad, chiefly because it will be said: "It is all very well for you, a dying old man, to say this, but you have lived differently. When we get old we will say the same." ”

“ But mutilation of one's members will not deliver us from temptation. People are caught in this snare because it is quite impossible to slay in one's heart the sex lust alone -one must destroy all lusts, one must so love God that one hates all the vanities of life. And this is a long road. And here it appears as though, once for all, by a short road, one can liberate oneself from the most evident and humiliating sin. But the pity is that by such short cuts one often does not attain one's destination, but instead falls into a swamp. ”

“ In the first place I wished to say that there is a settled conviction, which has taken root in all classes of our society, and is supposed by false science, that sexual intercourse is indispensable to health, and that, as the marriage state is not always practicable, sexual intercourse outside of marriage, imposing on the man no obligation beyond a money payment, is perfectly natural, and therefore deserving of encouragement. ”

“ The argument that the human race would cease were men to strive with all their might after chastity, is like the one which might be adduced, as in fact it is, that the human race would perish if men were to strive with all their might towards the realization of love towards friends, enemies, and every living creature, instead of continuing the struggle for existence. Such arguments originate in people who fail to understand the difference between two methods of moral guidance. ”

“ Marriage of course is good and necessary for the continuation of the race; but if people marry for this purpose, it is incumbent on them that they should feel in themselves the power of education their children not to become parasites but the servants of men and God. And for this it is necessary that they have the power of living not by the labor of others but by their own labor -giving more to men than they take. Whereas we have the burgess idea that one may marry only when one has firmly established oneself on other people's necks, that is, when one "has the mean." ”

“ An old man sensually courts his wife -repulsive, but less so than a young man with a prostitute. A young man behaves sensually with his wife -yet less repulsive, though still unpleasant. Such a gradation exists in regard to others, and we all know it very well, especially uncorrupted children, and young people. But for oneself there is yet another consideration: every virginal man and woman has the consciousness (often very dimmed by false views) that purity should be prized, of the desire to preserve it, and of grief and shame at its loss under any circumstances. ”

“ The real emancipation of woman is in this: To regard no labor as specially woman's work, which one is ashamed of touching, but to help her with all one's strength just because she is physically weaker; to relieve her from the work one can take upon oneself. In the same way in the education of girls, taking into consideration that they will probably have children, and therefore will have less leisure, -just in view of this to arrange schools for them, not worse but better than for boys, in order that they might beforehand gather strength and knowledge, of which they are capable. ”

“ The question of marriage is in itself not so simple as it seems. Falling in love is a deviation in one direction, but cold calculation is a yet worse deviation in another. If, as you say, one should take the first girl, i.e., one should not choose for one's own happiness, then one would have to surrender to that chance fate which governs external phenomena, and to subordinate one's choice to being chosen by another. We cannot act in discriminately while in complicated and sinful circumstances instead of disentangling them, we occasion suffering to others. ”

“ And so I picture husband and wife living as brother and sister: She in peace bears her child, uninterruptedly feeds it, training it morally at the same time; and only in disengaged periods do they again allow themselves to be in love, which lasts weeks, and then again peace. It seems to me that being in love is that steam pressure which would burst the engine if the safety valve did not act. ”

“ And so I say to those contemplating marriage, that just because their life seems to them so full, they should more than ever consider and make clear to themselves the purpose for which they are living. ”

“ Splendor, light, the beauty of the sun, the trees, the grass, the sky, even the sight of the human body without artificial adornments, the singing of the birds, the fragrance of flowers, the taste of simple food, fruits, and the touching of natural objects do not excite lust: it is excited by electric lighting, decorations, finery, music, perfume, gastronomic dishes, smooth surfaces. ”

“ If a farmer who is learning to sow corn were to leave the field he has sown badly, and after having tried his shill unsuccessfully in a second and third place were to recognize as sown land only the one successful field, it is evident such a man would waste much land and seed, and would not learn to sow properly. Only acknowledge chastity as the ideal, and regard every fall, no matter whose it may be, or with whom, as the one irrevocable life-long marriage, and it will be clear that the guidance given by Jesus is not only sufficient, but is the only possible guidance. ”

“ But he must believe this teaching entirely, this teaching alone, he must cease to believe all others; just as the mariner must believe in the compass and desist from guiding himself by what he sees on either hand.
One must know how to guide oneself by Christ's teaching as completely as by the compass; and to this end it is above all necessary to realize one's position. We must not be afraid of defining exactly our deviation from the given ideal direction. On whatever level a man may stand there is always the possibility of his approaching the ideal ”

“ There is a limit to the expression of one's feelings which one should not overstep -and you have overstepped it. And beyond this limit every communication of feeling becomes not a joy but a burden. Profit by the joy of love, which God has given you, without forgetting that it is love ”