Leo Tolstoy's views on marriage

Abstract

The article considers Leo Tolstoy's views on marriage in the evolutionary aspect. For young Leo Tolstoy, marriage and family is one of the main values. He understands them as a sphere saving a person from disharmony, despondency, sin, helping to find the meaning of life. The family is interpreted by Leo Tolstoy as the main purpose of person's life. In his early works, he builds a family model. Marriage and family for young Leo Tolstoy are considered to be the main condition for happiness. Love for the spouse is understood as a sense of respect for parents of their children. Over the years, Leo Tolstoy’s views on marriage have changed significantly. This is due to the change in Leo Tolstoy's attitude to the Church and to Church religion (by his definition), the writer's complete denial of private property, the complication of relations with his wife and children. Leo Tolstoy explains his point of view on marriage by following the true Christian teaching. Leo Tolstoy motivates the denial of marriage in the Christian way by the fact that the main purpose of a Christian is to serve God; marriage makes people serve themselves. Leo Tolstoy identifies justification by the church of the marriage with the excuse of "physical love". Leo Tolstoy considers marriage as a veiled form of fornication. However, he denied divorce because he believed that a woman left without a husband or a man without a wife would be exposed to moral decline. The author finds contradictory Leo Tolstoy's assessments of the marriage in the later work.