Page:The Relations Tolstoy.pdf/93

 but love. It is nearly always directed towards enemies. The most precious, the best love.

Transition from a high spiritual frame of mind to a carnal, base state of mind, are common to all people, and especially frequent with young people. It is important that a man should know which is the real state natural to him as a man.

Marriage, of course is good and necessary for the continuation of the species, but if for the continuation of the species, then it is necessary that the parents should feel that they have the strength to bring up the children, not as parents, but fit to serve men and God. But to attain that end one must be able to live not by the labors of others, but by one's own, giving more than one takes from people. We go by the bourgeois rule that you may marry only when you sit fast upon the necks of the people, i.e., when you have means. Just the reverse is required: only he may marry who can live and bring up a child without having any means. Only such parents can bring up their children well.

You ask on what is based the rule: "A husband should have one wife, and a wife one husband" and find that departure from this rule may not present anything bad. Your difficulty is well founded if one thinks of the rule that a husband should have one wife and a wife one husband as a religious rule. i.e. a fundamental, absolute rule, not subject to any exceptions. But this rule is not the fundamental religious one, but one deducted from the fundamental religious rule: love for one's neighbor, treating