Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 08 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/376

362 "In what consists this violation?"

"It consists in this: that a man loves a woman for the personal enjoyment he gets from connection with her, and not because she is a human being like himself, and so he enters into matrimony for the sake of his pleasure. Christian marriage is possible only when a man has love for his fellow-men, and when the object of his carnal love has already been the object of fraternal love of man to man. As a house can be built satisfactorily and lastingly only when there is a foundation; as a picture can be painted only when there is something prepared to paint it on; so carnal love is lawful, reasonable, and lasting only when it is based on the respect and love of man to man. On this foundation only can a reasonable Christian family life be established."

"But still," said Julius, "I do not see why Christian love, as you call it, excludes such love for a woman as Paris experienced."

"I don't say that Christian marriage did not permit exclusive love for a woman; on the contrary, only then is it reasonable and holy; but exclusive love for a woman can take its rise only when the existent love to all men has not been previously violated. The exclusive love for a woman which the poets sing, calling it good, though it is not founded on love to men, has no right to be called love at all. It is animal passion, and very frequently passes over into hate. The best proof of this is how this so-called love, or eros, if it be not founded on brotherly love to all men, becomes brutal; this is shown in the cases where violence is offered to the very woman whom a man professes to love, and in so doing compels her to suffer, and ruins her. In violence it is manifest that there is no love to man—no, not if he torments the one he loves. But in un-Christian marriage violence is often concealed when the man that weds a girl who does not love him, or who loves some one else, compels her to suffer and does not pity her, provided only he satisfies his passion."

"Let us admit that this is so," said Julius, "but if a girl loves him, then there is no injustice, and I don't