Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 18.djvu/490

 by a new sexual intercourse (in the shape of marriage) with another person, or even as on a permissible gratification of a need, or even a pleasure; but we must look upon the entrance into the first sexual intercourse of any one with any one whatsoever as upon an entrance into inseverable marriage (Matt. xix. 4-6), which binds the conjugal pair to a definite activity as a redemption of a sin committed.

3. We must not look upon marriage, as they do now, as upon a dispensation to gratify carnal lust, but as upon a sin demanding its redemption.

The redemption of the sin consists,—in the first place, in the liberation of self from lust, the conjugal pair helping one another in this, and in the attainment, as far as this is possible, of the establishment among themselves of the relations, not of lovers, but of a brother and sister; and, in the second place, in the education of the children, the future servants of God, who spring from marriage.

The difference of such a view on marriage from the existing one is very great: people will marry just as much as ever, and just as much will parents think of getting their children married, but the great difference consists in this, as to when the gratification of the lust is considered permissible and legitimate and the greatest happiness in the world, or when it is considered a sin. Following the Christian teaching a man will marry only when he feels that he cannot act otherwise, and having married he will not abandon himself to his lust, but will strive to subdue it (both man and woman); the parents, caring for the spiritual good of their children, will not consider it necessary to get all married, but will get them married, that is, will counsel the fall, or make it easy for them, only when the children are not strong enough to preserve their purity, and only when it shall become clear that they cannot live otherwise. The conjugal pair will not desire, as they do now, a large number of children, but, on the contrary, striving after purity of life, will