Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 18.djvu/505

 and union, the one who stands on the lower level of comprehension and feels the higher comprehension of the other must submit, and not only submit in worldly, practical matters, in such things as what to eat, how to eat, how to dress, how to live, but must also submit in the direction of life, in the aims of the activity.

If it should turn out that I like billiards, or the races, or my ambition more than my children, there might be place for reproaches; or if it should turn out that I am a coward and am afraid to go against the existing order, lest my peace be disturbed, these reproaches might touch me. But if I love God, that is, the good and truth, I certainly love my children in the best way possible and for them do the very best I can do.

For happiness, still more, for the true good of the married pair and of the children who live with them, and for the good of all their near friends, the concord of the spouses is indispensable; discord, quarrels, are a misfortune for them, for the children, and an offence for people, a most terrible hell. That this may not be, but one thing is needed: one of the two must submit.

It seems to me that it is so easy and such a joy for that one of the marital pair to submit who understands that his other half stands higher, understands something not quite accessible to him or her, but something that is good and divine,—one always feels that,—that I wonder why they do not do it.

It is necessary to unite serving men and serving the family, not by distributing the time mechanically between this and that, but chemically, by adding to the care of the family, the education of the children, an ideal meaning in the service of men. Marriage, true marriage, which is manifested in the birth of children, is in its true significance only a mediate service of God, a service of God through the children. For this reason marriage, conjugal