Love and marriage in Vl. Solovyev 's «The justification of good»

Abstract

Vl. Solovyov wrote extensively about love in his romantic and mystical poetry, in his correspondence and in his memoirs. He composed a whole book about love («The Meaning of Love», 1892-1894). The present paper is about the theme of love in Solovyov's moral philosophy as expounded in his «Justification of the Good» (1897). Love in the framework of society is legitimised in marriage, both religious and civil. Solovyov sees in marriage and family a positive consequence of the development of statehood. The problem is that he considered for a long time that the sexual act is unable to restore the lost integrity of the human being. Only chastity can. To get out of the difficulty, Solovyov invokes an «inner» (spiritual?) procreation different from an «outer» procreation. But it does not make things clearer. It seems that, in the last year of his life, Solovyov abandoned that spiritual maximalism, as is proved a contrario by the character of the Prince in «Three Conversations», who is both a celibate spiritualist and a precursor of the Antichrist.