The other side of the relationship big difference aged, are marriages in which the husband is much younger than wife. It is a widely known fact that experienced women of mature age often become mistresses of young men who begin sexual relations. I will quote one of the letters published in Speed-Info.

"I am 22 years old. Happy with life. But one "but"! I have no interest in peers. On the contrary, more mature women, 35–45 years old, are attracted. It is worth seeing a pretty woman of this age on the street, how an erection occurs. And fantasies fill my head. But not just ordinary fantasies, but a desire to rape this woman. At any age, I have always been drawn to women older than me. At school, to the teachers. And he never fell in love with his peers. But the problem is that when I fall in love with women aged 35–45, I don’t meet them, that is, I don’t sleep with them, because I’m very afraid and don’t know how to approach them. I’ll come up, and she’ll say: brat, the milk on my lips hasn’t dried up, etc. Therefore, I have to relax with my peers, but during intercourse I think, I fantasize that that woman is nearby, i.e. 35–45 years old, otherwise nothing will not work".

In the comments of the specialist to this letter, it is said that the experiences of the young man are normal and do not contain any pathology. And the main fear is the fear of being rejected. Not believing that a desired woman can voluntarily accept him as a sexual partner, he takes possession of her by force in his fantasies. In principle, there are many middle-aged women who would like to marry a man younger than themselves. But they, like this young man, avoid the situation of real acquaintance. Either they are shy, or they do not consider themselves attractive to young men. Or, finally, they are afraid to face a maniac. It is possible that the author of the letter was not an "early child" and his mother was just 35-45 years old when he was 4-6. And at this age he considered his mother not only a seductive, but also a very smart woman. And at school, he fell in love with teachers, that is, with those who had the right to intellectually dominate him. Can he fall in love with his peer? Such an option is possible. But she, most likely, intellectually and by experience will be older than her passport age.

If such relationships develop into family ones, then, as a rule, the woman takes the dominant maternal position, and the man takes the role of the “evergreen” boy. However, in many cases, such positions do not interfere at all with building mutually satisfying relationships. Female sexuality reaches its peak by the age of 35-40, and it is a young, energetic, albeit not too sophisticated lover who is ideal for a mature woman. Especially if she has a strong character, is confident in herself and has achieved something in her life (it doesn’t matter whether she is on her own or with the help of ex-husbands). Then there is no need to shift the burden of responsibility for material and domestic problems, the upbringing of children on the fragile shoulders of a young husband. As one lady said 8 years older than her husband, "when the husband is young, then I am young." And it's not just about sex. Such a marriage constantly keeps a woman in good shape, makes her follow her figure, face, wardrobe, because there is not a single woman who could “forget” about her age.

Men who enter into such a marriage, as a rule, are somewhat infantile, beautiful and somewhat feminine in appearance and claim to be a kind of “darling of fate”, since, choosing a woman older than themselves, they make a certain compromise. Although, it is probably difficult to give a single assessment of such marriages, given how many options for relationships can be among such families - after all, even people are not the same, and even more so marriages. The list of people who entered into such unequal marriages includes Isadora Duncan and Sergei Yesenin (18 years difference), Gala and Salvador Dali (10 years old), Edith Piaf and Theo Sarapo (20 years old), Liza Minnelli and Scott Baio (16 years old). ). Or take at least the most legendary couple of our stage: Alla Pugacheva and Philip Kirkorov. How many copies were broken around them by journalists and idle townsfolk, how many versions of their union were offered, and in spite of everyone they lived long enough in their marriage - more than other ordinary couples. So, if love has arisen between people and they are psychologically suitable for each other, you should not be rigidly guided by the usual stereotypes. Fate gives people their lottery tickets in a very bizarre way - if you refuse the unusual, you may not get any.

Alla Pugacheva and Philip Kirkorov - in the first period of their marriage

There is another aspect of such marriages: for one reason or another, partners often do not want or cannot have children, and this form of family is very “convenient” for implementing a “childless program”. When the MK correspondent asked if the widow of the poet Levitansky now wants to find a husband younger than her, she replied that she considers such a union unnatural. According to her, the situation "old man - young woman" does not go beyond the natural norm. And the situation "old woman - young man" is unnatural, because it is not natural. Old man may have a child by a young woman. The game in other gates does not work.

However, it is difficult to squeeze real life into any kind of framework; not in all cases, the psychological portraits of such families correspond to those described. I knew a couple in which the wife was 12 years older than her chosen one. This lady, outwardly fragile and infantile, was very smart and enterprising, and her favorite role in the family was the image of a “capricious girl”. Her 22-year-old husband took on all household duties, earned money, in general - behaved like an experienced, caring and responsible "father of the family", while he was quite satisfied with his life and sincerely considered his wife the most defenseless and touching girl in the world.

And finally, one more example - from history. Russian people have always been distinguished by maximalism in their views on the past of their country. The French, for example, sacredly honor the memory of their great revolution and not only regularly celebrate its anniversary for more than 200 years, but also remember all its heroes and anti-heroes. With us, everything happens differently. The heroes of the Great October Socialist Revolution were either raised to the shield and unrestrainedly praised, then they completely denied their role in this very Great October Revolution (as was the case with Trotsky and Bukharin), then they were taught their biographies, like the lives of saints, then they were easily deleted from textbooks. So, today's schoolchildren no longer know the once legendary activist of the Russian revolution, A. M. Kollontai, who was not only the first woman ambassador in the world, but also made a significant contribution to the Russian sexual revolution.

In December 1917, A. M. Kollontai met P. E. Dybenko in a stormy stream of revolutionary events. Their acquaintance soon turned into friendship, and then into stormy love. She was then 45 years old, he was 28, but this did not stop them from being passionate about each other. “Our relationship,” Kollontai recalled years later, “was always joy over the edge, our partings were full of torment, heart-breaking emotions. It was this power of feelings that passionately, strongly, powerfully attracted me to Pavel. When A. M. was once asked how she decided to have a sexual relationship with Dybenko, despite the fact that she was 28 years older than him, Kollontai answered without hesitation: “We are young as long as we are loved.”

A. Kollontai and P. Dybenko

A shadow of the past

The memory of the past kills hope for the future.

(V. Bruskov)

In the relationship of spouses, their previous sexual relations can sometimes play an important role. Sometimes the past, seemingly forever left behind, actively interferes with the present and destroys the future of a new family. Problems can arise even when young spouses get married for the first time and do not have a long train of sexual partners behind them, but if the marriage is not the first, and the number of past sexual partners exceeds a dozen or two, then mutual quarrels and quarrels on this soil is almost inevitable.

At the same time, the spouses, like the ancient Greek heroes, find themselves between Scylla and Charybdis: telling honestly about all past relationships means arousing jealousy and killing in a partner such a soul-warming feeling of their exclusivity, and if you hide it, then where is the guarantee that the old relationship will not pop up in the most the wrong moment for this, causing the effect of an exploding bomb. And yet the truth about a loved one's past sexual relations is such a powerful and ruthless remedy that it should be used with more caution than arsenic or mercury preparations, which are sometimes used in medicine. The slightest overdose of such "truth" can lead to the strongest "poisoning" of mutual love, and even her death.

To illustrate such a categorical statement, I would like to cite an excerpt from A. Kuprin's story "Loneliness", in which a young husband, out of vanity and a desire to brag, talks about his novel that happened in the recent past.

“Vera Lvovna listened to him without interrupting a single word and at the same time experiencing a bad feeling, similar to jealousy. It pained her to think that at least one happy moment from his former life remained in his memory, not destroyed, not smoothed over by their present common happiness.

The gazebo suddenly hid around the corner. Vera Lvovna was silent, and Pokromtsev, carried away by his reminiscences, continued:

Well, of course, they played in love, without this it is impossible in the country. Everyone played, starting with the old prince and ending with the beardless lyceum students, my students. And everyone patronized each other, looked through their fingers.

And you? Have you also... courted anyone? Vera Lvovna asked in an unnaturally calm tone.

He ran a hand over his mustache. This self-satisfied gesture, so familiar to Vera Lvovna, suddenly seemed vulgar to her.

Y-yes...and me too. I have a little affair with Princess Kate, a very funny affair, and perhaps, if you like, even a little immoral. You understand: the girl is not yet sixteen years old, but her swagger, self-confidence and so on are simply amazing. She gave me her point of view. “I’m bored here, he says, because I can’t live a single day without the consciousness that everyone around me is in love. You are the only one here that pleases me. You are not bad-looking, you can talk, and so on. Of course, you understand that I cannot be your wife, but why shouldn't we spend this summer cheerfully and pleasantly?

So what? It was fun? Vera Lvovna asked, trying to speak carelessly, and she herself was frightened by her suddenly hoarse voice.

This voice made Pokromtsev alert. As if apologizing for causing her pain, he pulled his wife's head to him and touched her temple with his lips. But some vile, irrepressible attraction that swarmed in his soul, some vague and disgusting feeling, resembling boastful youth, pulled him to tell further.

So we played love with this fledgling and at the end of the summer we parted. She quite indifferently thanked me for helping her not to be bored, and regretted that she had not met me, having already married. However, she, according to her, did not lose hope of meeting with me later.

And he added with a mock laugh:

In general, this story is one of the most unpleasant memories for me. Isn't it true, Verochka, is all this disgusting?

Vera Lvovna did not answer him. Pokromtsev felt pity for her and began to repent of his frankness. Wanting to make amends for the unpleasant impression, he once again kissed his wife on the cheek ...

Vera Lvovna did not resist, but she did not answer the kiss either... A strange, tormenting, and incomprehensible feeling to herself took possession of her soul. There was also partly jealousy for the past—the most terrible kind of jealousy—but it was only partly. Vera Lvovna had long heard and knew that every man has intrigues and connections before marriage, that what constitutes a huge event for women is a mere accident for a man, and that this terrible state of affairs must inevitably be put up with. There was also indignation at the humiliating and depraved role that fell to the lot of her husband in this novel, but Vera Lvovna remembered that her kisses with him, when they were still bride and groom, were not always innocent and pure. Most terrible of all in this new feeling was the realization that Vladimir Ivanovich had suddenly become a stranger, a distant person for his wife, and that their former intimacy could never return.

Why was he telling me all this crap? she thought painfully, clutching and tormenting her cold hands. - He turned my whole soul and filled it with dirt, but what can I say to him? How do I know what he experienced during his story? Regret for the past? Bad excitement? Disgust? (No, at least not disgust: his tone was self-satisfied, although he tried to hide it ...) Hope to meet this Kate again someday? And why not? If I ask him about it, of course, he will hasten to reassure me, but how to penetrate into the very depths of his soul, into the most remote bends of his consciousness? How can I know that, speaking to me sincerely and truthfully, at the same time he does not deceive - and perhaps completely unwittingly - his conscience? O! What I would not give for the opportunity to live at least one moment his inner life, alien to me, to eavesdrop on all the shades of his thoughts, to peep what is happening in this heart ... "

Vera Lvovna was terrified and sad. Today, for the first time in her life, she came across a terrible consciousness that sooner or later enters the head of every sensitive, thoughtful person - the consciousness of that inexorable, impenetrable barrier that always stands between two close people. “What do I know about him? Vera Lvovna asked herself in a whisper, squeezing her hot forehead with her hands. - What do I know about my husband, about this person with whom I eat, drink and sleep together and with whom I have to spend my whole life together? Suppose I know that he is handsome, that he loves his physical strength and grooms his muscles, that he is musical, that he sings poetry, I know even more - I know his gentle words, I know how he kisses, I know five or six his habits ... Well, more? What do I know more about him? Do I know what trace his former passions left in his heart and mind? Can I guess those moments in him when a person suffers internally during laughter, or when external, hypocritical sadness covers gloating? How to understand all these subtle twists and turns of someone else's thoughts, this monstrous whirlwind of feelings and desires, which constantly, quickly and imperceptibly rushes in the soul of an outsider?

Suddenly she felt such a deep inner anguish, such a painful consciousness of her eternal loneliness, that she wanted to cry.

Relationship dynamics in marriage

I was single - I dreamed of odalisques, bacchantes, whores, geishas, ​​pussies. Now my wife lives with me, and at night I dream of silence.

(I. Huberman)

The beginning of a joint journey

The first month after a divorce can be better than a honeymoon

The shortest and most succinct description of the evolution of relationships in marriage I found in Eric Berne. He wrote: “Marriage is six weeks of excitement and a world record in sex. Five more weeks to get to know each other, a time of fencing, quick throws and retreats, finding each other's weaknesses, and then the games begin. After six months, everyone makes a decision. The honeymoon is over, marriage or divorce is about to begin - until further notice."

Bill Lawrence wrote that the honeymoon comes to an end when He says on the phone that he will be late for dinner, and She has already left a note that dinner is in the refrigerator. According to many sexologists, marriage is a serious test for love, and there are several objective reasons for this.

The first of these is "habit". By this quite everyday term, I mean the loss of freshness of perception, as a result of which the vision of the sexual partner loses the original freshness and brightness observed in the initial period of the relationship. As the French poet Edmond Rostand said, “To live with the person you love is as difficult as to love the person you live with.” After all, when falling in love only flares up, all the feelings of a person in relation to a loved one acquire a special sharpness and multicolor. He can admire the face of his beloved for hours, listen to her voice for an infinitely long time, study her body with delight, etc. But the first months pass, and then years of marriage. The wife's face is already known to the smallest detail, her voice drives melancholy with its predictability, the body has been studied up and down. Sensations fade, become "gray" and "monochrome". There is a purely physiological explanation for this. In the central nervous system a person has a special part of the brain - the thalamus, which filters all signals entering consciousness, passing into the cortex hemispheres only new or particularly important information. It's like clothes that we feel only at the moment of putting on, but then we stop feeling, or new curtains in the house, which we first pay attention to, and after a few days we stop noticing. Approximately the same thing happens with a spouse, who over the years becomes only a part of the familiar background, an element of the home environment, which reduces the intensity of sensations and leads to an increase in boredom and indifference.

The second reason: the obligation to love, for, as Helen Rowland wrote, "marriage is the miracle of turning a kiss from a pleasure into a duty." The very phrase “marital duty” is already depressing and reduces potency. It is difficult to find words so opposite in emotional and volitional mood than "love" and "duty". As soon as you try to force yourself to sleep just because you have to get up early tomorrow, you doom yourself to long-term insomnia. If you must be grateful to someone for doing a good deed to you, you run the risk of hating him. Our subconscious is very stubborn, it can sometimes be deceived, but it is almost impossible to force something to do. And emotions, including love, are exclusively in his jurisdiction. Therefore, attempts to force your spouse to love just because he has a corresponding entry in his passport are doomed to failure.

I. Anchukov "The age of will not be seen ..."

The third reason why love can gradually melt away is that at home we look without embellishment, as we really are. If you take a picture of a woman before "going out" in all the splendor of high-quality makeup and then compare it with a photograph taken in the morning, immediately after waking up, then this comparison will be simply stunning. (This is a purely speculative experience, and, for God's sake, do not try to bring this crazy idea to life! Besides, this is not a stone thrown into a women's garden, it's just that the "fair sex" has this example more indicative.) But it's not even about cosmetics, but in the roles we play in society and at home. A seducer lives in every man (big or small, talented or mediocre - it doesn't matter), just as in every woman there is a seducer. This fact does not require moral assessments - it is and will be so, because it is determined by the genetic program, which is switched on at the subconscious level. This program requires casting its charms and vibes on any yet unconquered person of the opposite sex.

Thus, outside the home, men and women instinctively strive to make the best impression on other people; to do this, they dress smartly, comb their hair, use perfumes and cosmetics, take seductive poses and make significant faces. When they come home, they shed all this like snake skin (there is no longer any need to conquer anyone in their native walls), and appear before their wife or husband in a rather unattractive background, especially compared to other people. The well-worn sweatpants with bubbles at the knees, the husband's wrinkled old shirt and worn slippers, and the wife's old dressing gown or her nightgown two sizes larger are completely different from the groom's evening suit or the bride's French underwear in their period before marital relations. A sharp lowering of the bar soon after the wedding can cause resentment in one or both spouses, which can gradually lead to a cooling of feelings.

The fourth reason for the fading of love in marriage is the availability of the fulfillment of sexual desires. On this occasion, the statement of Emil the Meek is recalled: “To take care of his own wife seemed to him as ridiculous as hunting for roast game.” The law of motivational psychology says: "When there are no obstacles, interest disappears." Sex in marriage should not take place at the first request of one of the spouses, it must be earned, as in an open relationship. Sigmund Freud wrote that the longer the interval between the emergence of desire and its satisfaction, the stronger the emotional experience, the more powerful the discharge. If the desire is satisfied immediately after its occurrence, then the pleasure from sex is minimal. Normally, a free woman does not give herself up at the first request of a man, and being married, she seems to be obliged to do this. Women feel the absurdity of this situation especially sharply, an example of which is the aphorism of Anita Ekberg: “You won’t understand men: before marriage, they behave as if everything is allowed to them; after the wedding - as if they were not allowed to do anything.

Henri Cadue. Lost Illusions

The fifth reason for the death of love is quarrels because of the desire to "improve" a partner. As Gilbert Chesterton said, “Your friends love you the way you are; your wife loves you, but she wants to make another person out of you.” On this occasion, more than two centuries ago, Nicolas Chamfort wrote: “Love, even the most sublime, gives you the power of your own passions, and marriage - the power of your wife’s passions: ambition, vanity and everything else.” Apparently, the French thinker hit the mark, as centuries pass, and women do not change. One of my acquaintances quite seriously said to her husband: “I love you very much, dear! But as much as I love it, if you had a beautiful new foreign car!” The man had no words, but the great English playwright John Priestley had already answered for him when he stated: “A loving wife will do everything for her husband, with one exception: she will never stop criticizing him and educating him.”

The sixth cause of the death of love is quarrels over mismatched lifestyles. Strange as it may seem at first glance, but disputes over the order of washing dishes or attitudes towards pets can destroy a feeling that seemed huge and unshakable to the newlyweds. At the same time, slogans like “If you love me, you must ... (you can insert something from your experience here, ranging from “take out a bucket” to “buy mink coat"). But listen, gentlemen, the concepts of "love" and "should" cannot be put side by side in one sentence, it's the same as measuring butterflies in kilograms, and time in meters. A truly loving person does something for the beloved, not because he has to do it, but because he wants to. He does not need to be forced or blackmailed for this, he is happy to please his beloved. Therefore, if such conversations begin in the family, then this is an alarm signal, indicating that love has begun to crack and needs to be saved. Unfulfilled hopes can also be attributed to the same category of reasons that destroy marriage. “I got married because I didn’t want to cook breakfast in the morning, but got divorced because I didn’t want to cook two breakfasts,” Alexander Kulich wrote.

Marriage with experience: fatigue and habit - how to resist them?

Family life began: laundry, cleaning, ironing and marital duty.

(A.K., Samara (From letters to "Speed-info"))

Breaking stereotypes

Only being alone with himself does a person become natural and free from the need to play any role. This happens only when he is left completely alone - no matter where: in the deep forest or in own house. If there are people nearby, then the person automatically, most often unconsciously, tries on one of his many roles: "husband", "father", "work colleagues", "lover", "stamp collector", "dentist's patient" etc. Each of these roles involves a certain behavior, its own special jargon, facial expression, mood and inner feeling. When talking to his own children, a person assumes the role of an all-knowing, strict, but just "Father"; being called “on the carpet” to his boss, he hastily puts on the mask of a hardworking and respectful “Subordinate” while still in the waiting room; chatting with a pretty fellow traveler in a train car, he enjoys playing the role of a charming, laid-back and slightly frivolous "Playboy", etc.

“The whole world is a theater, and the people in it are actors,” - in this brilliant phrase of Shakespeare there is more sense than is commonly believed, because not only a person plays this or that role, but also a role begins to play a person over time, changing his personality, deforming character and developing new habits. For example, a woman who is accustomed to being a strict teacher at school automatically brings home a demanding tone and mentoring notes in her voice, and as a result, she stumbles upon the resistance of her husband, who plays the role of “Master in the house”. Agree that the roles of “Lovers” or even “Groom” and “Bride” are significantly different from the role of “Spouses” who have been living together for a long time, and accordingly the whole atmosphere of their relationship is different, including tone of voice, vocabulary, clothes and, most importantly, the energy of communication . Putting on role-playing masks of exemplary spouses every morning, people do not notice that a boring and gray disease called “Habit” has already settled in the air they breathe, like rust systematically and mercilessly corroding their former love.

In order for relationships not to become covered in a web of dull habits, spouses should change their behavior patterns more often, especially in their sexual life. You should periodically change the ways of having sex and the role of partners in bed (not only according to the position they occupy - “who is on top”, but “who is below”, but also according to the functions performed in the love game. If the husband was usually active, then let him for some then the wife will take over this function, and vice versa). You can change the time of having sex and the place where it happens. Along the way, you can change home clothes, their styles, styles, and so on. A woman can change the color of her hair, and a man can grow a mustache or a beard (or both at the same time). A good result is a more frequent visit (or invitation) of guests, concerts, discos, expanding the circle of friends, etc.

The problem of addiction, which adversely affects family sex, is very acute all over the world. Spouses, as a rule, do not share their worries with others and, as they can, try to find a way out of the situation. In this they are helped by psychologists and sexologists, for example, Dagmar O'Connor, who wrote a wonderful book "How to make love with the same person all your life and have fun." In it, she analyzes numerous conversations with her clients who have lost faith in marital sex. In this book, she cites the statements of people who came to see her: “What kind of spontaneity can we talk about if every day in front of you is the same body, the same smell, the same as always?” say her patients. Other statements in the same vein: “He no longer excites me. I don’t feel anything when he touches me”… “Her body is not the same anymore”… “I’m too tired, and so is she”…. "I don't have time for sex."

“For all these people, sex has lost its magic,” the writer notes. - If they make love, then only to maintain the “weekly rhythm”, not to argue with their spouse. These people rarely have sex for pleasure. However, do not equate sex with food or drink, it makes it unattractive. People who turn sex into a purely genital act consider affection and tenderness only as a means to bring a partner to a certain state, after which their need is satisfied.

I devote at least 15 minutes to sexual play, never pounce on it without preparation, Jack told me.

In fact, "sex play" is the most anti-sexual expression I know. This is something that is considered a must to do in order to get everything you really want. Jack was attracted not by the process of making love, but by the end result.

Some clients told Dagmar O'Connor that real bright sex, saturated with strong emotions, they get only on vacation, and at home in the marital bed it is gray and unmemorable. In such cases, Dagmar O'Connor advised the couple not to wait for "vacation sex", but to occasionally take a one-night stand away from home. As a rule, the result was excellent. Here's what Terry and Borden told her, a married couple who tried to change their usual way of having sex. They played the role of a couple in love, who ran out of town to have sex without interference.

The first time we arrived at the motel in the evening, the receptionist looked at us very suspiciously and without approval. We struggled to hold back our laughter and laughed in our room for half an evening, and then made love. Next time we went to another motel and checked in as George and Martha Washington. This time the administrator winked at us, and we had a wonderful time.

After these holidays, Terry and Borden got better and "home" sex, it became more intense and varied.

“A little prank can make all the difference,” says Dagmar O'Connor. - Some couples do not just leave home, but look for a new place every time. One woman told me:

We spent one evening in a very elegant hotel, the other in a terrible one, there were even bed bugs. And one day we stumbled upon an old-style inn that turned our trip into a secret love affair and we felt like the heroes of a novel.”

Spontaneity

Spontaneity is the most important principle of sex. If any person rummages through his memory, he will probably find that he received the most recent and vivid impressions of sexual relations with a habitual partner in the case of an unplanned sexual intercourse, performed under the influence of a powerful and quick desire. If this flame of passion that has engulfed one partner spreads to the second, then the sensations from such spontaneous sex can be extremely strong, wherever it takes place - in the bedroom, in the kitchen or in the toilet cubicle of the conservatory after listening to Tchaikovsky's First Concerto (among readers' letters after the publication of the first edition of this book was such a thing!).

The problem is that most often a sudden desire covers one person, while the second at this moment may be completely unprepared for intercourse and, moreover, take offense at such a violent and unplanned manifestation of passion, accusing his ardent partner of "exploiting" himself. Most often, such an accusation is heard from the lips of women.

You are using me!

You are just a rude animal! I don't understand how you can have sex at half past seven in the morning?

Are you crazy? My mom is in the next room! You can't wait until evening. Here we lie down to sleep - and then humanly, like all people ...

I don’t want to throw stones only at the women’s garden, so I fully admit that the replicas can be of a different kind:

Darling, I'm so tired at work, and here you are with your caresses ... - Where did you put your hand? Now you will excite me, and soon the daughter from school should return! What will we do then?

Accusations of selfishness, of sexual exploitation of one spouse by another are very often present in family relationships. As a result, the spouses develop a not very positive attitude towards their sudden sexual desires and a wary and fearful attitude towards the possible reactions of the second spouse to them. People are afraid of appearing shameless or intrusive and carefully suppress their secret desires instead of telling their spouse about them. I want to remind once again about the fundamental postulate of the theory of Sigmund Freud: repressed sexual desire does not disappear anywhere, it only plunges into the dark depths of our subconscious in order to emerge from there at the most unexpected time for us and in the most unpredictable way in a different guise - a voluptuous dream, an accidental a slip of the tongue, an obsessive desire, or an unexpected act. Therefore, in order to preserve and improve the relationship between husband and wife, it is much better to tell each other frankly about your desires, even secret ones that, at first glance, seem indecent or shameful, than to bury them in yourself, at the same time digging a grave for future sexual relations in marriage.

So how do you cultivate frankness and spontaneity in your marriage while avoiding being accused of selfishness and exploitation? Dagmar O'Connor calls this method "Contractual Selfishness" and describes it in the aforementioned book.

“An attractive couple, aged 35, Penny and Rick, came to me complaining about the complete “lull” in their sex life.

What did you do before that you don't do now? I asked.

We always do pretty much the same thing,” Rick said, “we just can't do the same thing now as before.

Maybe it's time to try something else, I suggested. - Your sexual tastes change, as tastes change in food, literature and everything else. Have you ever confided your deepest sexual fantasies to each other? What would you like to experience? What caresses do you prefer?

They shrugged and shifted in their chairs. After a few questions from me, Penny explained what prevented her from talking to Rick about it.

It seems to me that when you start to explain something, then sex loses its magic, And then, it's so disgusting, to say, for example: "You know, I want you to stroke me here like this, and there differently." Before, Rick always knew exactly what I needed and I didn't have to ask him.

What if he can't read your mind right now? I asked with a smile. "Are you still not going to tell him anything?" You think that if he truly loved you, he would guess your desires, don't you? Too many people fail because of this common myth.”

With a special spiritual closeness between the spouses, another myth arises: “We are so similar,” the spouses say, “that, I am sure: what I like, my half likes.” These romantic myths do a lot of harm and are absurd in their essence. Then why are they so popular?

Lovers. From an engraving by the Japanese artist Sushmura. 17th century

It's all about the feeling of shame: we are embarrassed to say what we would like in bed, because we do not want to seem selfish to both our spouse and ourselves. Selfishness is considered the worst of the sins in sex. To express what you want, without complexes and excuses, only means that we want to enjoy the joys of sex as much as possible. Meanwhile, selfish consensual sex - The best way both enjoy it. In bed, two selfish creatures achieve what everyone wants. Therefore, the spouses must agree to satisfy each other, and in the way that the other will offer. Such a "contract" is very serious and difficult for many to conclude, but if turned into a game or a fun exercise of one's abilities, it can fundamentally change the way a married couple approaches sex. You just need to agree with each other that within two weeks everyone, without hesitation, asks for what he wants. When a sexual desire arises in one spouse, one should not wait until the second spouse "guesses his thoughts" and is ready to fulfill his request. He himself needs to clearly and unequivocally, without unnecessary bashfulness, explain what he wants. For the duration of the contract, you should give each other permission to ask for anything at any time, even wake up at two in the morning or do “it”, at first glance, in an unusual setting. At the same time, you should not subject your desires to moral or other censorship, and do not try to guess whether your partner likes your whim or not. On the other hand, don't be surprised if your partner's secret desire turns out to be too ordinary or incomprehensible to you. So that no one feels unfairly offended, before starting the contract, you can discuss how many times during these two weeks each spouse can ask the other for a “sex service”. In order to avoid possible conflicts, it makes sense to agree on the admissibility of the refusal of one of the partners, if the desire of the second spouse seems completely impossible to him at this stage in the development of their relationship. Let the second person have the right to say: "I'm not ready for this fantasy yet," but it should be a refusal in the form of "not yet" and not "no, never."

During this game, psychologists advise to abandon the feeling of guilt for the "exploitation" of a partner, because with this form of sexual intercourse, the roles of the spouses periodically change - today one shows generosity and generosity, tomorrow - the second. Sometimes the second partner immediately accepts the sexual desires of the first, and then new forms of sex by mutual agreement are quickly introduced into the general repertoire, and sometimes it takes a long time for the other spouse to abandon the usual stereotypes and want the same himself. There is no need to rush in this matter. Taste comes with eating. And even if some of the sexual fantasies are not accepted by the other side, at least occasionally they will be realized during the operation of such “agreements”, which means that such thoughts will not be suppressed and go into the subconscious, threatening family well-being from there.

Keep fit, don't let yourself loose at home

Men should always remember that a wife is not only the mother of his children and a companion in household chores, but first of all a woman, which means that she constantly needs to be conquered (or other men will do it for him). Of course, it is not necessary to go home in a tuxedo and evening dress, and a woman’s face should take a break from cosmetics in the evening, but, on the one hand, you can always pick up quite beautiful and fresh clothes for home use, and on the other hand, who prevents spouses from arranging festive and even slightly festive dinners at least on weekends, or at least would you like to wear something fancy?

But clothes are just an outer shell, a peel that peels off every evening, or even more often. Even more important is what is underneath. Unfortunately, we have lost much of the love and respect for the human body that the ancient Greeks had. They knew how, on the one hand, to groom and caress him with fragrant oils, massage and rubbing, and on the other hand, to train, educate and temper. In antiquity, people were not ashamed to appear naked, and the soul and body were two equal halves of human nature. Nowadays, many of us have undeservedly forgotten about our bodies, and such neglect of our body causes a corresponding reaction on its part. After all, scientists have long established that a significant part of the diseases - hypertension, bronchial asthma, ulcerative colitis and even cancer - reflect the rebellion of our subconscious to the ruthless exploitation of the body, to inattention to its needs.

Therefore, taking care of your body is the primary task of any person who wants to live happily ever after. But we are now interested in another aspect of a healthy lifestyle - the impact of the state of our body on sexual life in marriage. Why do many spouses cease to experience sexual arousal at the sight of their dearest halves? One of the frequent reasons for this is the physical condition of their bodies: flabby, flabby, overweight. Yes, working on your body takes time, and sometimes money. But usually the third component is missing - willpower. And then a dubious argument comes into play: "Let him (she) love me for who I am." Or even cooler: "I want to be loved by my wonderful soul, and the body shell is secondary." With such words, people justify their laziness and weak will, forgetting that beauty and love have always been inseparable twin sisters, and by deliberately killing one of them, we often doom her sister to death.

It is better to save on liquor or an extra dress and buy a season ticket in gym or shaping courses. If the financial situation is completely critical, there are still morning physical exercises, jogging, a bicycle, homemade dumbbells and a crossbar in the yard.

A partner must be won

A wife should not be given to her husband at his first request. If she wants to be appreciated, so that her husband experiences a full-fledged vivid orgasm, she must show considerable ingenuity and coquetry in order to “fire up” her husband and bring the strength of his desire to such a level that he would passionately want her, but at the same time not felt that he was simply being “thrown”, and would not have run to seek solace with another, more accessible woman. Here tact and understanding are required from the wife. With proper behavior, mutual flirting followed by sex can bring new and vivid sensations to spouses, forgotten in the routine of marital duties.

Accept a person for who they are

Sometimes it happens that, looking up from the TV, which shows the film “Basic Instinct” or “Pretty Woman”, the husband stumbles upon his wife, dusting the dressing table, and, briefly comparing her with Sharon Stone or Julia Roberts, thinks: “ Yes ... there are women in their villages ... Look what they do in bed. Yes, and external data - on the top five with a plus. And my…". And he sadly realizes that he is doomed to spend the rest of his days with a far from perfect female representative.

Or maybe another picture. On March 8, all women are given gifts at work. And now, receiving flowers and a chocolate bar from a handsome, generous colleague with compliments, someone's wife thinks: “Well, someone got a man: both handsome, and gallant, and not boring. And mine is a bear-bear. He’ll bring borscht in the evening and won’t even say thank you. And now I have to suffer with him all my life.

What can be said about this? Of course, there are about three billion women on Earth and about the same number of men. And perhaps somewhere in Louisiana, Stockholm or Uryupinsk, your ideal half is waiting for its fate ... But again, because there are three billion of them (these potential halves), the chances of finding your ideal in this life are too small. If you don't want to be a bachelor all your life, you still have to make a choice, and preferably not at the age of seventy. Therefore, if you are already married (married), then, most likely, your spouse at one time had quite certain virtues - otherwise you would not have chosen him. And to be sad because it does not contain all the virtues of the world is at least stupid. Going in this way, one can only poison family life, nothing more. It’s better to think more often that your spouse is the one and only!!!

On the other hand, it would be much more constructive not to focus on what you don't like, but to determine together how you would like to see each other? What qualities should be accepted as they are (height, nose shape, eye color, etc.). What qualities, in principle, can be changed if one of the partners wants it, and the other does not mind acquiring new features (build up muscles, lose five extra pounds of weight, dye your hair black, make ceramic crowns instead of metal ones, quit smoking, etc. ).

The combination of delicacy and openness is very important here. If you are not sure that your spouse is able to change in the desired direction, it is better not to torment him unnecessarily. If his normal weight is 80 kg, and he feels great at the same time, then it is better not to torment him with daily weighing and banning his favorite pies. And then: it is extremely difficult to force another person to change, it is much easier (and more interesting) to make him want to do it himself. Show your spouse the benefits of the new position, encourage them along the way, and you'll mutually enjoy the change. Instead of the words spoken in a grumbling, dissatisfied tone: “Look at who you look like! If you don't lose weight by Sunday, I won't go to the theater with you! And stop slouching!”, it is better to exclaim with enthusiasm: “I can imagine how elegant you will look if you drop a little here at the waist. You will be very reminiscent of a young Sean O'Connery. And, if you can, straighten your shoulders a little, dear. Right now you're great."

Connect play and fantasy

Fantasy in sex is not necessarily a way to replace a bored partner in your imagination with another - invented one. In fact, you may well decorate your sex life with your spouse with a rainbow of fantasies. Without fiction and imagination, sex becomes prosaic over time, in the end it is fantasy that distinguishes us from animals, because only a person can turn ordinary intercourse into a stunning performance. The best performances in this area are shared fantasies that shatter all norms. For example, spouses can play the role of lovers during their intimate meetings outside the home. One woman told Dagmar O'Connor:

Sometimes my husband calls me at the office and briefly says: “At five at the Lexington Hotel. And that's enough to give me goosebumps.

Another couple played the same game at home:

One day my wife, in the midst of the events, whispered to me: "Hurry up, otherwise my husband will come soon." It was great and witty at the same time. Now she sometimes complains to me about her husband, and I do not defend myself. I am a sympathetic lover, and, you know, surprisingly, I understand her husband's shortcomings very well.

For some people, the fulfillment of fantasies is the only way to achieve complete satisfaction. One woman began to experience an orgasm only after she and her husband began to play prostitute and client:

When we're done making love, I always tell my husband to leave the money on the chest of drawers. There is something about this game that liberates me and my husband. Now I always have an orgasm.

Dagmar O'Connor notes that by playing "whore", this woman was able to shed the "good girl" complexes that prevented her from enjoying sex. The fantasy worked, as a result, both spouses received a new quality of sex.

Return to earlier periods of relationship

Before having sex, do not try to take off all your clothes at once. Play seduction. Recall your early experience with each other, when you slowly undressed each other, anticipating the delicious pleasure of long-awaited sex. Usually, going to bed, the spouses "in passing" are going to have sex and undress for this. Boring! But once upon a time it seemed so tempting and electrifying to stroke our breasts through a sweater or rub against each other with buttocks chained in jeans, put our hand under a blouse or stroke a swollen fly, and even in a place where it’s completely obscene to have sex! After all, it promised so much ahead! Why do we now avoid wonderful touches? Is it really necessary to start and finish everything so urgently? The more games in sex, the longer the path to the expected, the better pass coitus. First of all, because during a long game more blood will flow to the genitals, therefore, the deeper will be the subsequent relaxation. After all, having sex in clothes means playing seduction, which is so pleasant and so exciting. Try to play this game with your spouse - seduce by undressing. Especially women miss such a magnetic excitation that occurs when one after another the buttons on a blouse are unbuttoned, the zipper on the skirt descends - and all this with constant stroking and caress.

Accept and surrender

At the very beginning of the conflict, when anger or irritation has not yet captured the soul, you need to ask yourself: “Do I love this person?” After all, a man in love was once ready to perform a feat in the name of his chosen one and even give his life for her. In family life, both less and more are required: just give in to the dispute. Remember that you yourself periodically change your point of view - and nothing terrible happens. Why do you deny the right to have your own point of view to another, and to the person closest to you?

Think of people who have ever liked your spouse. Think about how he (she) could be attractive to another: face, figure, voice, charm ... Imagine that you are a colleague of your wife (an employee who works in the same office as her husband). How could you have an affair with the person you like? Look at your spouse through the eyes of another person (interested in closer contact). Think about how you can attract him, win sympathy. Connect your imagination and ingenuity, and you will see a lot of new details in a seemingly well-known person. A slight amount of jealousy (unreasonable) that may arise at the thought of how they can look at your wife (husband) will not hurt, but will only cheer up and give tone to a slightly faded relationship.

You can apply this rule at some party, at a holiday where you and your spouse communicate with a large number of people. See how other men talk to your wife, how they dance with her, how they want her. The wife can do the same, evaluating the attractiveness of her husband, which can be read in the eyes of strangers. At the same time, flirt with the guests from the heart - all this charge of energy in the evening can turn into an excellent session of love at home.

Pay attention to how others communicate with your spouse: how they feel his attraction, how they take him by the arm, laugh at his jokes. Imagine that you need to "remove" him (her) and start flirting. And save all these feelings until you come home ...

Tact and patience

In the relationship of spouses in marriage, patience and a desire to restore a shaken relationship are very important. If a wife notices that her husband has reduced sexual activity, in no case should she blame him for impotence or immediately start a lover (unless, of course, this wife wants to save the marriage and make it not just tolerable, but, if possible, happy ). First of all, she must understand what is behind the reduced sexual activity of a man: a decrease in his libido or an inability to realize it (for simplicity, let's reduce this dilemma to two main questions: "Doesn't want?" or "Can't?").

If “cannot”, then this, paradoxically, for the wife is a more desirable option. The main thing is that he wants, and it is his wife. The rest will follow. Illness, spring beriberi, overwork, problems at work, even the wife's word spoken in the heat of the moment - all this can cause a temporary decrease in potency. For the spouse, the most important thing in this case is not to focus on this, to be affectionate and patient. To show that an affectionate look and a gentle touch are quite enough for her (even if this is not entirely true). This unpleasant event can become an occasion for a mutual search for new forms of sexual games and experiments that will only enrich married life after the problem disappears. In no case should a wife throw phrases like: “What else can you expect at your age?” or "Well, if you can't do it the way a man should, let's try something new." Remember: a man who finds himself in such a delicate position becomes very vulnerable and sensitive to ridicule. A woman, on the contrary, should notice any positive signs of the restoration of potency and encourage her husband in every way. Everything can be used: massage, lacy lingerie, erotic videos, a gentle whisper in your ear before going to bed and much more. A woman should not offer sex, but even slightly avoid it, tease a man, saying that "the doctor has temporarily forbidden them to do this" until the potency is finally restored. Believe me, nothing increases this potency as much as prohibitions!

Now let's analyze another situation: "He doesn't want to!". Here options arise: “Does not want a wife” and “Does not want anyone.” If “no one”, then, perhaps, as in the first case, depression or problems at work are to blame (especially if a man has his own business, and the country is called “Russia”. With our officials and taxes, the presence of sexual desire among relatively honest businessmen is perceived as an unexplained natural phenomenon). In this case, the libido will be restored along with the submission of the annual balance sheet or with the long-awaited customs clearance of an important cargo. The task of the wife during this period is not to demand the impossible from her husband and help him endure life's difficulties.

If the husband does not want a wife, and at the sight of a pretty ass on the TV screen, his tights begin to move, then the situation is more serious. The worst option for a wife is if the husband is in love. It is clear that not in her, and blinded by a sudden outbreak of passion, he does not want to have any sexual relations with his former "half". Here the prognosis may be the most unfavorable, and victory, even if it is for the legal wife, can come at a great cost to her.

A more frequent variant of the gradual cooling off of a man towards his own wife is based on the loss by this wife of her former sports-erotic form: curlers on her head, a torn dressing gown on her body and holey slippers on her feet. If you add to this a sagging belly, a hunched back and a lack of makeup, then you can at least partially understand a man who, with a sad sigh, follows his neighbor, who works as a secretary in a chic office, with a sad sigh. What should a wife do in this case? Curlers - down with a greasy bathrobe to replace, or at least wash and shorten to a mini format, buy shoes for the house. Remove the belly with the help of shaping, straighten the shoulders, light the eyes, make up the lips. And do not forget about the hypnosis of French linen and a drop of good perfume before bed.

Marriage is the only union that can only be exited by dissolving the entire organization.

(Vladislav Grzeshik)

AT recent times attitude towards the institution of marriage is undergoing certain changes. It began to be perceived by some sociologists and psychologists not as a mutually beneficial union in which each of its members seeks to provide the second spouse with the most optimal conditions for existence, but as a forced union of two beings seeking, first of all, to satisfy their purely selfish goals and forced to resort to this to certain compromises. This view finds support among ethologists - scientists who study the behavior of animals. On this occasion, Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene wrote: “... Thus, each of the partners can be seen as an individual who seeks to exploit the other, trying to get him to contribute more to the cultivation of offspring. Ideally, each individual "would like" (I do not mean that he would experience physical pleasure in this, although it is possible) to copulate with as many members of the opposite sex as possible, leaving in each case the rearing of children to his partner.

This view of sexual partnership as a relationship characterized by mutual distrust and mutual exploitation is especially emphasized by Trivers. For ethologists, this view is relatively new. We are accustomed to consider sexual behavior, copulation and the courtship ceremonies that precede it as some sort of joint activity in its essence, undertaken for the sake of mutual benefit and even for the benefit of this species!

From such a rather pessimistic view of the union of the two sexes follows the almost predetermined prospect of divorce - that is, the return of marriage partners to their original individual existence. However, one should not miss positive influence divorce to the institution of marriage.

Divorce can be the gravedigger of a family union, and then the person who survived it decides never to marry again, and can become the beginning of a new family, more durable and happy than the one that was before. Divorce can be desired only by one of the spouses, and then for the second it is perceived as a tragedy, or both can - and then the divorce will become for both long-awaited release from already unnecessary legal fetters, as was the case with Woody Allen, who told reporters: “We were considering what to do: go to the Bahamas or get a divorce. But, in the end, they decided that the Bahamas are only a pleasure for two weeks, and a good divorce remains for life.

Therefore, depending on the specific circumstances, divorce can be both a blessing and an evil. Joseph Collins said: “Divorce is not the enemy of marriage, but its ally”, believing that it is the possibility of “early” termination of marriage that makes the latter more durable, because it deprives it of the elements of doom and life. The same point of view was shared by Adrian Decourcelle, who argued that "divorce is a safety valve in the marital boiler."

On the other hand, there is another opinion: divorces, they say, weaken marriage, pushing people to a frivolous attitude towards it. This view is primarily characteristic of cultures with a strong influence of the church (Italy), as well as with well-established national traditions (China). In Catholic countries, marriage is considered to be overshadowed by divine grace, and therefore its destruction is a sin. In countries focused on material values(USA) difficulties on the way to divorce are associated with a very complex and expensive procedure for dividing property. Nevertheless, even practical Americans understand that it is better to spend several tens of thousands of dollars on lawyers than to live with a psychologically incompatible person. All that remains here is to treat the situation with a bit of humor, as did the American millionaire Tommy Manville, who divorced thirteen times. Once, after another divorce proceedings, he noted with slight sadness: "She cried - and the judge wiped her tears with my checkbook."

Non-traditional forms of marriage

The bonds of marriage are so heavy that they can only be carried by two, and sometimes three.

(Alexandre Dumas son)

When, at the beginning of the 20th century, Wilheim Reich, one might say, for the first time seriously engaged in the mass study of family relations, he was surprised to find that not only men, but also women, in their dreams and fantasies, paint pictures of adultery with pleasure. In the book “Sexual Revolution”, W. Reich wrote: “There is not a single woman who has not been visited by the so-called “fantasies on the topic of prostitution”. This should not be taken literally. Only a few women see themselves in fantasies as prostitutes. It is almost always about the desire to have sexual intercourse with several men, not limiting your sexual experience to one partner. It is clear that such a desire is connected with the idea of ​​prostitution. The data obtained as a result of clinical analysis of character completely destroy the belief in the monogamous predisposition of a woman. Alas, the belief in the monogamous predisposition of men was buried much earlier.

Trying to find a compromise between the need for marriage as a social institution that gives stability to society, and the desire of people not to be limited to only one sexual partner, people came up with various "non-traditional" forms of marriage.

Such exotic forms, for example, include "temporary marriages", which until the beginning of the 20th century were widespread among Shiites, especially in Persia. Johann Bloch in his "History of Prostitution" wrote about this:

“A temporary wife has the right to remarry every 25 days. A temporary marriage can last one hour. According to custom, a Persian, going on a journey or expedition, never takes his wife with him, but at almost every station where he stays for a longer time, he enters into a temporary marriage.

"Marriages for an hour" are especially common in the villages. The villagers willingly give their daughters or sisters to rich people for this kind of connections, which bring a lot of income both to them and to the intermediary mullahs. Even in the brothels of Persia, every evening the imam marries his clients with the ladies of their choice according to the ritual and writes a contract in which a mandatory remuneration is established.

If you think that such "fleeting" marriages are in the distant past, then you are slightly mistaken. I won't talk about the great Elizabeth Taylor, who got married almost whenever she liked a man - her eight marriages are detailed by reporters. In life, there are cooler stories, for example, 28 marriages of American Scotty Wolfe. His stunning story was featured in Speed ​​Info a few years ago. Wolfe celebrated his last wedding when he turned 85 years old. His last wife is also from the breed of champions, she was married 22 times. According to Scotty Wolfe, the main desire in his many marriage experiments was to make his future wife happy and then prepare her for an independent life. He preferred to marry young. His wife No. 27 was 14 years old when they married. When she turned 20, she filed for divorce.

True, wife No. 28–53 years old. Since she has a wealth of experience behind her and she knows how to please a man, the bride is confident that their marriage will be stable. But why did she choose Scotty Wolfe? What can an 85-year-old pensioner give her? Attention, warmth, tenderness - this is, firstly, and secondly, financial security (even though Scotty regularly pays alimony to all his 19 offspring from different wives, he is a wealthy man). And Scotty himself believes that, quite likely, this marriage of his may not be eternal. Marriage, he says, is an experiment, a journey into the unknown, which he intends to continue until last breath.

"Swedish-Russian" family. I. I. Panaev, A. Ya. Panaeva and N. A. Nekrasov

Of the "non-standard" forms of marriage that exist in our time, one can name polygamy, which officially exists in Muslim countries, the so-called “Swedish family”, in which several couples peacefully have sex, same-sex families consisting of gays or lesbians, Mormon families in which there is one husband and several wives, etc.

In the history of Russian literature of the 19th century, a rather noticeable phenomenon was the “tripartite” union of the great Russian poet N. A. Nekrasov, A. Ya. Panaeva and her husband, I. I. Panaev. Avdotya Yakovlevna Panaeva had problems with her husband immediately after the wedding. Her husband was not going to part with bachelor habits. Elegantly dressed, with carefully styled hair, he wandered around fashionable drawing rooms, restaurants and actors' restrooms, made friends with hussars, actresses and "ladies of the demimonde". As a result, A. Ya Panaeva began to feel more and more alone and abandoned. Nekrasov began to visit her house from 1845 and almost immediately was fascinated by the elegant, swarthy hostess, who, in addition to her attractive appearance, also had an excellent literary taste. Nekrasov soon confessed his feelings for Panaeva, but she continued to be faithful to her frivolous spouse and did not take reciprocal steps towards the poet.

A year later, N. A. Nekrasov takes a step unprecedented for that time: he settles in the same apartment with the Panaev couple, and there, on Liteiny Prospekt, the poet and Avdotya Yakovlevna begin to get closer, which ended in their civil marriage. It took Nekrasov almost a year and a half to win the heart of his beloved, and the day of their sexual intimacy became a real holiday for Panaeva. She wrote:

Happy day! I distinguish him
In a family of ordinary days,
From him I count my life
And I celebrate in my soul!

Panaev, famous for his secular frivolity, was a kind fellow and, according to his contemporaries, reacted to what had happened with calm indifference. The whole trinity not only met daily in the evenings in their apartment on Liteiny, but also worked together on the Sovremennik magazine, which was published by Nekrasov. Panaev led the fashion department there, and he did it with soul and imagination.

The union of N. A. Nekrasov and A. Ya. Panaeva, which went through love and hate, coldness and riot of feelings, lasted almost 16 years! In the best years of their life together, they not only enjoyed the joys of love together, but also worked together, creating several novels. In his poems, Nekrasov called Avdotya Yakovlevna his "second muse", which was the highest sign of the poet's recognition. Nevertheless, their life together was by no means strewn with roses: the great Russian poet was not indifferent to female beauty, and sometimes this led to family quarrels. One day he got carried away French actress Selina Lefren, distinguished not so much by her beauty as by her lively disposition, brilliant outfits and not bad musical abilities. Nekrasov communicated with Selina more than once both in St. Petersburg and abroad, and much later she wrote from Paris to the poet: “Do not forget that I am all yours. And if it ever happens that I can be of service to you in Paris ... do not forget that I will be very, very glad. In another letter, Celina Lefren wrote: "I understand here how empty everything is around, and that it is necessary in the world to have a real friend." Apparently, they were connected not only by friendship, for Nekrasov remembered the actress all his life and in his posthumous will appointed her ten and a half thousand rubles, which at that time was a very impressive amount.

Naturally, Avdotya Panaeva did not like such passages on the part of her partner, and very stormy scenes took place between them. One of Nekrasov's poems, written by Panaeva in moments of repentance, has come down to us, in which the great Russian poet admits his guilt and asks to forgive him:

Sorry! Do not remember the days of the fall,
Anguish, despondency, anger, -
Don't remember the storms, don't remember the tears
Do not remember the jealousy of threats!

But the days when love shone
Above us gently rose
And cheerfully we made the way -
Bless and don't forget!

Celibacy as a way of life

And the Lord God said, It is not good for a man to be alone; Let us make him a helper suitable for him.

(Genesis 2; 18.)

It is not good for a person to be alone. But, Lord, what a relief!

(John Barrymore)

To begin with, an excerpt from Alexander Meshkov's comic story “If you decide to get married”: “The present times make us think about the expediency of marriage and the institution of marriage in general. It should be remembered that the wife will have to be fed. It takes between 500 and 1000 US dollars to feed a medium-sized adult woman. Add more expenses for clothes and tights, medical care. Some women also need to cut, dye. In addition, you will have to pay with your time and give up many amenities. Several days a week you have to walk your wife, you have to change the warm comfort of a lonely bed, and many wives toss and turn and snore during their sleep.

Do you need a business trip? And how many jokes and life situations begin with the words “Husband is returning from a business trip”?! The health of the wife will have to be closely monitored, otherwise she may become pregnant, and this is an additional cost. In addition, wives constantly shoot money from their husbands - sometimes whole salaries.

There is an opinion that blondes are dumber and difficult to train. A wife should be taken both large and charming. But keep in mind that brunettes are more sociable and mobile, and this threatens with the possibility of adultery. Big, big women eat a lot. Measure your material resources. Besides, big wives fight. However, it also happens like this: they take a small wife, and she grows into a large, portly woman. Rarely does the opposite happen. Sometimes some husbands get stressed after marriage because their wives don't compete in beauty contests and don't become supermodels. In this case, you should take your wife directly from the exhibition. However, this will come at a cost. This is available only to business people ... "

Now you understand why sociologists are sounding the alarm about the steady increase in the number of singles - people who, for one reason or another, do not enter into a registered marriage? In the USSR, from 1959 to 1970, the number of men who did not enter into a registered marriage increased by 14% at the age of 25–29, and by 45% at the age of 30–39. The well-known sexologist I. S. Kon explains this phenomenon with various reasons. In his fundamental work "Introduction to Sexology" he writes: "Some do not marry because they are not psychologically or physiologically adapted to it. Others simply avoid the responsibilities associated with marriage, preferring to satisfy their sexual needs in casual relationships (it used to be more difficult). Still others (there are quite a lot of them) are actually married, but do not register it. These types are socially and psychologically distinct, but their prevalence is a rather serious symptom. To this it should be added that the motivations for avoiding sexual relations between men and women at some points are quite different from each other. Therefore, it makes sense to separately analyze the "hardened bachelors" and "old maids".

hardened bachelors

You must always be in love. That's why you should never get married.

(Oscar Wilde)

People who do not marry and remain single for the rest of their lives can be conditionally divided into two groups: those who “want but cannot” and those who “can but do not want to.” The first group includes persons with physical and mental defects who themselves “put an end to themselves” and decided (in most cases unreasonably) that there is hardly a woman who will agree to marry them. In fact, the problem of such people most often lies in their inferiority complex and weakness of character. There are a lot of examples of how strong-willed people overcame their physical shortcomings and found wonderful life partners. From the "textbook" we can recall the Hero of the Soviet Union pilot Alexei Maresyev, from those closer to us in time - Academician Svyatoslav Fedorov. The latter had a foot amputated in his youth, which did not prevent the young guy from a modest family from becoming a world famous scientist, the wealthiest doctor in the Soviet Union and a favorite of women.

There are much more representatives of the second group (“maybe, but does not want to”), as well as the reasons why various men stubbornly avoid the bonds of Hymen.

Firstly, these are people with a complex character, experiencing difficulties in social adaptation. As a rule, in their life baggage they have the experience of unsuccessful love or marriage, which had a huge negative impact on them (for example, the betrayal of a beloved woman or a sharp dissimilarity of characters in their first marriage). Such people unreasonably extend their bad experience to other women, believing that subsequent marriages will not be better.

Secondly, the so-called "mama's sons" belong to the "hardened bachelors", for whom the image of the mother is able to completely displace any other woman from the soul. Oddly enough, this happens with two opposite options: if the mother of the future bachelor is an imperious woman who overly takes care of her beloved child, who in no way chooses the “ideal wife” for her overgrown son, or the son himself idolizes the mother and cannot pick up a bride in any way, similar to her.

Thirdly, the opponents of marriage include people with low sexual desire, who do not feel craving for frequent sexual contacts and therefore do not see the need for marriage. In addition, they often have an interesting job or hobby that they fill their leisure time with, which also reduces the need for communication with people of the opposite sex.

The fourth group of men who avoid marriage should include persons with non-traditional sexual orientation (primarily homosexuals) or people prone to various sexual anomalies.

The fifth group of bachelors includes people of certain professions (sailors, polar explorers, geologists, special forces soldiers), who are characterized by many months of business trips and who understand that their marriage because of this has little chance of becoming happy.

Single life has both pluses and minuses. On the one hand, a bachelor does not need to support his wife and children; he can spend more money on himself personally. He should not “get used to” another person, adjust his life and habits to the woman living nearby. He can, as often as he likes, change sexual partners without worrying about secrecy or jealousy. He is unfamiliar with such a concept as "marital duty", he does not owe anyone and makes love exclusively at will. On the other hand, at times he experiences a feeling of aching loneliness, he is deprived of a family atmosphere, he feels some social rejection from those around him. Due to promiscuity, single men have a higher risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases; according to statistics, they live several years less than those who are married. So the price of freedom is quite high - years of life. But, again, the most hardened bachelors claim that, firstly, their life is much brighter and richer in events than that of “married men”, and secondly, life after seventy does not particularly attract them, because why do we need a life without sex ?

In general, there are plenty of arguments “for” and “against” marriage; the only correct solution to this ancient problem has not yet been found. “Get married anyway,” advised the wisest Socrates. “If you marry successfully, you will be an exception; if you are not lucky, you will become a philosopher.”

The most famous people who avoided marriage for a long time include the great French writer Balzac, who for a long time was passionately in love with the Polish aristocrat Anna Hanska and at the same time avoided marriage with her in every possible way. M. Zoshchenko in the book "Before Sunrise" describes these relationships as follows:

“For many years he corresponded with this woman. He loved her with the strength that a man of great heart and mind is capable of.

At a distance (they lived in different countries), she was not "dangerous" to him. But when she wanted to leave her husband in order to come to him, he wrote to her: "Poor tied sheep, do not leave your stall."

However, she "left her stall". She came to Switzerland to see Balzac. However, it was an unfortunate meeting, Balzac almost avoided Ghana.

Biographers were baffled by his behavior.

He felt afraid to recognize the one he loved.

He was afraid of too much happiness.

- He had a bad room, and he was embarrassed to invite her to his place.

But Ganskaya's husband died. All moral motivations have disappeared. There could be no more retreats.

Balzac had to leave for Poland to marry Hanska.

The biographer writes that this decision - to go, greatly excited him. "Sitting in a carriage, Balzac almost stayed there forever." With each city, approaching the destination of the journey, Balzac felt worse and worse.

He began to suffocate to such an extent that further way seemed unnecessary.

He came to Poland almost a ruin.

The servants supported him by the arms when he entered Ganskaya.

He muttered, "My poor Anna, I think I'll die before I give you my name." However, this state of his did not protect him from the wedding, which was scheduled in advance. The last days before this, Balzac was almost paralyzed. He was carried into the church seated in an armchair. He died soon after, at the age of fifty. He was a man of great physical strength, great temperament. But that didn't save him from defeat."

Old maids

If there is anything sadder in the world than a single woman, then perhaps a woman who claims that she likes it.

(Stanley Shapiro)

"Old maids" are not born, they become, and most often through the fault of the parents. The reasons that lead to such a life scenario can be divided into several categories: defects in education, personality traits, and incorrect behavior strategies.

Defects in education

Very often, the formation of the psychological attitude of the "old maid" begins in early childhood. This often happens if a woman whose husband left her is raising her only daughter, and the man left the family shortly after the birth of the child, and the girl does not remember him. In this case, the image of the father, which will subsequently serve as a kind of "matrix" for the formation of the image of men in general, will be surrounded by a negative halo. If the mother does not hide from the child her negative attitude towards her father, and expresses her negative emotions in a generalized and harsh form (“all men are scoundrels ...”, “your dad was a decent beast, however, the rest are no better ...”, “they only you need one, and then look for their fistulas - only the trace has caught a cold ... "," daughter, for God's sake, be careful in dealing with men, otherwise you will remain, like me, on beans ... "). When a girl is protected from the sexual side of life from childhood, she is raised to be afraid of men, distrustful of them, then over time she develops a fear of the opposite sex, a misunderstanding of male psychology, and an unwillingness to have anything to do with them. The prognosis becomes especially difficult if the mother, of course, from the best of reasons, ”protects her daughter from contact with boys, does not let her go out with her peers, to discos, to nature. The greatest Chinese of the 20th century, Mao Tse Tung said: “To learn how to swim, you have to swim!” In order to learn how to successfully communicate with members of the opposite sex, there is no other way than communication. Of course, it is desirable if at the same time there is friendly advice and help from the mother, tactful prompting and adequate reactions to inevitable mistakes and failures. Only in this case, the daughter will not repeat the sad experience of the mother.

A completely different scenario, which is less common but can still lead to loneliness, develops when a girl is raised by her father. In this case, the figure of the father (especially if he is kind, affectionate and handsome) grows to epic proportions and the girl develops an “Electra complex”. Her father becomes the best man for her, next to whom the rest of the stronger sex pales. The situation can be complicated if the father also has subconscious sexual feelings for his daughter (and this should not be treated as something dirty and perverted - these are natural, biologically determined attractions that are present to one degree or another in a significant part of fathers in relation to to their beloved daughters). Another thing is that these subconscious motivations are suppressed by the Super-Ego and forced out of consciousness, however, in the case incomplete family, the father is often jealous of the men of his daughter, and the girl herself loves her father more than her fans. In order to untie this tangle of biological and social attachments and ensure a happy family life for his daughter, it is desirable for the father to be aware of the real relationships in the family and to show tact and wisdom.

Another factor that can complicate the life of a girl may be, strange as it may sound at first glance, an excessive passion for classical literature. What was relevant in the 19th century is an anachronism for our time. It is foolish to behave at a school disco the way well-bred young ladies behaved at the ball of a noble assembly. I understand that such words can cause a negative reaction on the part of teachers of Russian literature, but the books of Turgenev and Tolstoy sometimes only interfere with social adaptation. In order to get closer to modern life I would recommend to dilute the classics more with modern literature. Yes, and then classic literature is also different. For sexual education, it is much more useful to read Nabokov, Kuprin and Bunin than many writers with whom the school curriculum is saturated.

Personality Features

This includes a number of psychological qualities, and first of all, low self-esteem. For a woman, an overly critical attitude towards her appearance, attempts to look for and find defects in her appearance are undesirable.

The second personality trait that makes it difficult to have intimate contacts with men is the “male” type of behavior combined with a low appreciation of men. The desire for independence, the desire to control a man, teach him. Lack of femininity, softness. Only a henpecked husband is suitable for such women, but they despise such men, and this contradiction is sometimes insoluble.

The third feature that prevents marriage is the desire to preserve their independence at any cost (especially among active women engaged in "free" professions: a lawyer, artist, journalist). Often, such women have a desire to get married on a conscious level, but various “fatal” circumstances prevent them from doing this. In fact, these are the jokes of their subconscious, which does not want to lose freedom so dear to them. They can “lose” their passport on the eve of the wedding, go on a spree before a responsible conversation with the groom, as if by chance to bring their best friend to the candidate for husband, and then hotly accuse both of betrayal. In public, such women (as a rule, relaxed and looking great) loudly complain about the fate that prevents her from arranging her personal life, but after another break with a candidate for the role of a husband, they silently sigh with relief.

Wrong Behavior Strategies

This, in particular, includes the inability to use cosmetics and clothing to shape their appearance, as well as the lack of coquetry skills. Some women do not understand that with the help of these means and with the same initial external data, you can radically change your appearance, create an image of an attractive and sexy woman. But their misfortune is that, due to defects in their upbringing, their assessment of "sexy woman" is extremely negative in them. They want to please men, but they are embarrassed to be attractive, considering coquetry to be a low means, and they quite sincerely believe that a man should fall in love with them solely for their high "spiritual qualities", although what it is and why their spiritual qualities should be highly valued, they plainly explain can not.

This category also includes straightforwardness in behavior and a clear demonstration of one's desire to marry (which scares men away); excessive demands on men and a quick termination of contacts when their ideals do not coincide with a real person; stubborn unwillingness to engage in premarital sex.

On the other hand, the opposite tactic - the willingness to surrender at the first request of a man, also does not bring success. Often suffering from low self-esteem and doubting their external attractiveness or the presence of other virtues, such women seek to win over the man they like, easily entering into an intimate relationship with him. But such behavior sharply reduces the value of this woman in men's eyes, as her partner thinks: "If she went to bed with me on the first evening, then she will easily do it with any other man." As a result, such an “ultra-accessible” woman falls into the category of “cheap women”, and there is no longer any talk of marriage.

Summing up the “debriefing”, we can make the following generalization, suitable for both men and women: in order to successfully marry, that is, to find a person with whom you can live a relatively happy life, you need to: a) love yourself, realize your worth and originality; b) constantly improve, be an interesting person, watch your body; c) do not be shy to present yourself in the best possible way, helping yourself in this with the help of clothes and cosmetics; d) communicate more often with members of the opposite sex and remember that the experience of live communication cannot replace books or films.

Notes:

However, there are other points of view - not in favor of romantic love. For example, psychotherapist S. Peel considers romantic love to be a manifestation of social and individual pathology, which is akin to a drug and resembles insanity.

This confirms the popular observation that everything good in life flies by very quickly.

The only alternative is celibacy, but this form of protest will be discussed at the end of the chapter.

By the way, the name of the young girlfriend of the venerable scientist was Lola, almost after Nabokov.

Almost like her parents!

Borisov Yu. V. Charles Maurice Talleyrand. Moscow: International relations, 1986.

Love in marital relationships. Typologies of love.

Optimistic and pessimistic models of love.

The optimistic model of love - according to Maslow - self-actualization of people - high satisfaction with sexual life over the years does not decrease, but increases. Partners are interested in each other, more and more over the years. The partners knew each other very well as they are. No idealization.

The pessimistic model of love - according to L. Kasler - love, as a feature of an immature personality.

3 reasons to love someone else:

• the need to confirm one's attitudes by another person - as a validation tool (immature)
• only love can satisfy sexual desire and not feel guilty
• love is a conformal reaction to the norms of society.

Feelings of gratitude for the lover, hatred potentially for the one on whom we are dependent - these are manifestations of an unstable marriage.

Models of marital love.

R. Sternberg is a major modern researcher of intellectual activity.

Intimacy - the depth of interpersonal relationships, trust in communication

Passion - mutual attraction of people to each other

Commitment Decision - Loyalty Decision Decision

The dynamics of emotional relationships in a married couple.

There are some processes that go on throughout life:

Adaptation (primary, secondary)

Primary marital adjustment- problem solving, development of communication tools, distribution of responsibilities. The transformation of falling in love into love is one of the aspects of primary adaptation.

Secondary marital adaptation- deep, good knowledge of the partner, convergence of personal factors. Highly developed ability to predict the behavior of a partner, synchronicity. Married couples who have lived together for more than 10 years have a portrait resemblance.

Negative aspects: fading of passion in the relationship of spouses: a feeling of disappointment, boredom, routine. Loss of interest in others as individuals.

Changes in the relationship of spouses are cyclically repeated.

V. Zatsepin - 5 stages:

1. deep passionate love
2. some cooling of relations with a partner, although the appearance of a partner is still encouraging.
3. continued cooling of relations
4. the presence of a partner causes irritation
5. the negative attitude takes over completely.

T. Kemper is one of the few who tried to interpret the feeling of love through any schemes. Human feelings in general with great difficulty lend themselves to any formalization with subsequent "objective" interpretation. Kemper, on the other hand, tried, within the framework of the socially interactive theory of emotions he was developing, to explicitly set the selection of variants of love using "verifiable" factors from the point of view of the theory.

T. Kemper's model is based on two independent factors that are present in any relationship (not only interpersonal, but also those whose subjects are entire social systems, such as states).

These according to Kemper are:

power, i.e. the ability to force a partner to do what you want, and status - the desire of a partner to meet the requirements of the subject. The desired result in the second case is thus achieved not by force, but due to the positive attitude of the partner.

Based on these two factors, T. Kemper identifies seven types of love relationships in a couple:

1. romantic love, in which both members of the couple have both status and, since each of them can "punish" the other, depriving him of manifestations of his love, power in relation to the partner;

2. brotherly love, based on a mutually high status and characterized by low power - the absence of the possibility of coercion;

3. charismatic love, in which one partner has both status and power, the other only status. An example of such relations in a number of cases can be relations in a pair of teacher - student;

4. "treason", - one partner has both power and status, the other - only power. An example of such a relationship, which gave its name to this type, can be a situation of adultery, when for a partner who has entered into a new relationship, the spouse retains power, but no longer causes a desire to meet him halfway, i.e. loses status;

5. falling in love - one of the partners has both power and status, the other does not use either one or the other. An illustration of such a relationship can be one-sided, or "unrequited" love;

6. "worship" - one partner has status without power, the other has neither status nor power. This situation arises when there is no real interaction between the members of the couple, for example, when falling in love with a literary hero or an actor who is only familiar from films;

7. love between a parent and a small child. One partner here has a high status, but low power (child), the other (parent) has a low status, since love for him has not yet been formed, but a high level of power.

In his study, L. Ya. Gozman identifies stages in the development of emotional relationships. Let's describe them.
Stage 1: the emergence and development of sympathy. Initially, such properties of the object act as significant: external data, socio-demographic characteristics, behavioral patterns; further, in the process of developing relationships and communication, as they are recognized, the socio-psychological characteristics of a person become significant.
the attraction is influenced by the dignity of a person, too high a level positive qualities reduces attraction, such a person is perceived as inaccessible and unattainable. His constant "correctness" is depressing. Increases the attraction of a smile, friendly manners. Attraction depends on self-disclosure, partners' trust in each other, the luck of the other person, the similarity of attitudes.
At subsequent stages, personal properties begin to play an important role in the development of attraction. To date, the prevailing point of view is the complementarity of personal properties.
spatial proximity, frequency of contacts, duration and intensity of interaction corresponding to expectations, cooperation (but not turning into rivalry), positive reinforcements as factors, contribute to the emergence and strengthening of sympathy.
The attraction is directed from sympathy to love. Feelings that accompany love are stronger than with sympathy: euphoria, depression, a tendency to fantasize, sleep disturbances, general arousal, difficulty concentrating.
The concept of "love" is one of the few words that express an almost absolute abstraction (along with "truth", "god", etc.).
In the concept of "love" people put different meanings.
In ancient Greek, the following terms were used to define the various manifestations and forms of love:
Eros - spontaneous, passionate, irrational love-obsession, striving for complete physical possession; Filia - love-friendship, due to social ties and personal choice, rational and amenable to consciousness control; storge - calm, reliable love-tenderness, especially family. And, finally, agape - selfless, sacrificial love, it is associated with complete self-giving, the dissolution of the lover in caring for the beloved.
An important source of the formation of the image of love in a person is the experience gained in the parental home, the influence of the behavior of the father and mother, since the image of love is not limited to ideas about how to behave during sexual intercourse, but is largely determined by the learned way of communicating in life together with others. people. Attempts to build theoretical models of love are distinguished by a claim to greater globality. And yet such cases are known. The differences between the models of love are based on the evaluation parameter: optimism-pessimism. The pessimistic model postulates the weakness and imperfection of man, while the optimistic model postulates the constructive power of love.

The pessimistic model was proposed by L. Kasler.
He identifies three reasons that make a person fall in love:
1) the need for recognition;
2) satisfaction of sexual needs;
3) conformist reaction (so accepted).
According to Kasler, love is an alloy of a set of emotions, among which the fear of losing the source of satisfaction of one's needs plays a leading role. Being in love, constructed by the constant fear of losing him, makes a person unfree, dependent and interferes with personal development. He connects the positive emotional state of a lover with a person's gratitude for satisfying his needs. Consequently, L. Kasler concludes, a free person does not experience love.
The optimistic model of love was proposed by A. Maslow. According to this model, love is characterized by the removal of anxiety, a sense of complete security and psychological comfort, satisfaction with the psychological and sexual side of relationships, which grows over the years, constantly increasing interest loving people to each other. During their life together, the partners get to know each other well, the real assessment of the spouse is combined with his complete acceptance. Maslow associates the constructive power of love with the connection of the sexual sphere with the emotional, which contributes to the fidelity of partners and the maintenance of equal relations.
Psychologists turned to the phenomenon of love, conducted research, the subject of which was different aspects this phenomenon. One of the fundamental questions is the question of the source of love. It is reliably known that love can be “different”, includes many aspects (physiological, psychological, social, spiritual, etc.) and personality states (sex, care, tenderness, respect, admiration, childbearing, etc.) and unequivocally it is difficult to speak of a comprehensive source of love.
Love as a reflection of personal inadequacy. So, some authors (Kesler, Freud, Martinson, Reik) have tried to describe the need for love as a sign of inadequacy. Z. Freud and V., Reik considered "love" as a reflected perception of one's own unachieved ideals in a partner, Peel drew a parallel between drug use and love (dependence on a sense of satisfaction contributes to an underestimation of one's self-esteem). According to Kesler, "love" is a sign of a need in a healthy person, and according to Freud and Reik, "love" is not a pathology, but characterizes a neurotic personality. Thus, the dependence of clients of psychotherapists on their partners shows that "inadequate personalities are more dependent on love in order to survive psychologically." So, the concept of inadequacy is used in different ways by different authors. Let us give as an example the development of the theory of love by a domestic author, the so-called "syntax of love".
Theory of love A. Afanasiev. "Love" is a special state of euphoria, caused by the illusion of finding "happiness" in a pair with a subject endowed sufficiently with those mental properties that are lacking. The author substantiated his idea of ​​the internal architecture of a person, consisting of four mental modules or functions: Emotions (“soul”), Logic (“mind”), Physics (“body”) and Will (“spirit”). This set of functions is inherent in all people, but it forms a hierarchy in the personality, which determines the difference between people. "As nature puts these four bricks on top of each other, such will be the inner world of the individual." Something in the human psyche is strong, sufficient, life-giving, and something is weak, insufficient, flawed, requiring supplementation and development. People converge fruitfully to varying degrees, striving for the harmony of the psyche and life in accordance with the hierarchies of their functions. It is a significant lack in the manifestation of any function (will, emotion, body, mind) that is the cause of love for another person. There are three types of love (or combinations of a weak function with the functions of the opposite side, which can cause euphoria):
Eros is love based on the principle of opposites. It occurs most often, unfortunately, the strong side of the other does not add strength to the weak side. Love - envy - hate.
Fipia - love on the principle of identity. Kindred souls, recognizing each other, eventually find themselves in front of their reflection in the mirror. Static, boring.
Agape is an evolutionary love that moves partners away from the opposite of identity. A fruitful, real "formula of love" leads to the harmonization of the personalities of those who love.
There are pure and many transitional types of relationships (24 options) with different development prospects.
Love is a normal feeling of an adequate person. However, for most psychologists, “love” is a completely normal feeling of an adequate personality.

Love in marriage and family relationships.
The concept of "love" is one of the few words that express an almost absolute abstraction (along with "truth", "god", etc.).
The ancient Indian treatise “Peach Branch” described the emergence of love: “Three sources have a human attraction: soul, mind and body. Attractions of souls breed friendship. The inclinations of the mind breed respect. The desires of the body give rise to desire. The union of the three drives produces love."
Fromm distinguishes 5 types of love: brotherly, maternal, erotic, love for oneself and love for God. He highlights in love: care, responsibility, respect for each other, knowledge of the characteristics of the other, an indispensable feeling of pleasure and joy for love.
R. Hatiss highlights in love respect, positive feelings for a partner, erotic feelings, the need for positive feelings of a partner, a sense of intimacy and intimacy. He also includes here the feeling of hostility, which stems from too short a distance between partners and emotional closeness.
According to Z. Rubin, love contains affection, care and intimacy.

Western scholars have proposed the following classification of love:
1. Eros: passionate love with a strong and obligatory touch of physicality and a desire for physical contact.
2. Ludus: hedonistic love is a game with rather superficial feelings, allowing for betrayal, partners' lack of obligations to each other.
3. Storge: calm and reliable love-friendship without special emotional experiences, but guaranteeing fidelity and care.
4. Pragma: relationships built on a sober calculation, rational and constantly controlled by reason.
5. Mania: irrational love-obsession, which is characterized by suspicion, jealousy and uncertainty about the fidelity of the object of love.
6. Agape: selfless love-self-giving, complete dissolution in the object of love, total service to him.
In this regard, some details of the gender-role behavior of men and women are curious (L. Ya. Gozman, 1987). So, it turned out that the "desire to fall in love" in men is a stronger reason for starting a relationship than in women.
It was also found that men in general are characterized by a higher level of romanticism than women, they fall in love easier and faster. But at the same time, during the period of already established love relationships, a woman is capable of greater self-disclosure and evaluates her partner higher than he does her.
T. Kemper (1979) proposed to distinguish between love relationships in a couple, taking into account two factors: power, that is, the ability to make a partner do what you want, and status - the desire of the partner himself to meet your requirements. Thus, he identified seven types of love relationships:
1. Romantic love: partners have both power and status.
2. Brotherly love: partners have a high status and low power, that is, there is more likely a mutual willingness to meet each other halfway than a desire to force, force the other to do it.
3. Charismatic love: one partner has both power and status, the other only status. Example: student-teacher relationship.
4. Cheating: one partner has both power and status, the other only power (the cheating spouse retains power over the second, but loses status, that is, the desire to meet his requirements).
5. Falling in love: one of the partners has both power and status, the other has neither one nor the other (the so-called "unrequited" love).
6. Worship: One partner has status but no power, the other has no status or power.
7. parental love: one has high status and low power (child), the other has low status and high power (parent).
This typology, despite some schematicity inherent in almost all psychological typologies, can be used as the basis for the study and analysis of emotional relationships in a couple.

Modern concepts that explain the mechanisms of the emergence of love take physiological attraction as the starting point. Romantic love is interpreted as a strong excitement, which can be the result of anything, but often coexists with danger, death, fear. Romantic love is fickle and unstable, as 1) the causes of excitement in everyday situations quickly disappear; 2) associated with the constant experience of strong (both positive and negative) emotions, from which they quickly get tired; 3) is focused on a stable idealization of a partner, in which a real person becomes a phantom. A statistically normal outcome of family relationships built on romantic love is disintegration.

TYPES OF LOVE IN FICTION

Target: Show the versatility and immeasurability of love in all its guises and manifestations; show that different types of love are found in literature.

Tasks: 1) To teach to distinguish between types of love, it is easy to find them in the text;

2) Develop a sense of beauty, creative thinking;

3) Cultivate love for literature, parents, people around. To form an understanding of "true" love.

Equipment: presentation, multimedia projector, computer.

Work form: conversation

Progress

"When two people do the same thing, it's not the same thing"
Terence

"Love cannot rule over people, but it can change them"

Goethe

Love in its various manifestations throughout the history of mankind has been the most common theme of works of art. Let's try to illustrate the types of love on the example of well-known personalities and literary heroes.

Video 1. Types of love. (1:23)

LOVE-EROS.

Eros (ancient Greek ἔρως) - this is a spontaneous, enthusiastic love, bodily and spiritual passion. It is a passion more for oneself than for another, aimed at the object of love "from the bottom up" and leaving no room for pity or indulgence. Her spirituality is rather superficial and illusory.

Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is love-passion.

This is a romantic feeling that can burn for a long time and brightly, but can go out without a trace from one harsh word or shocking act. Some are able to experience this feeling once in a lifetime, some - several times. But it always happens spontaneously, swoops like a hurricane and intoxicates a person. There is no drama in this love, it is like a holiday that is awaited with joy and parted with without regrets. This love cannot long exist without reciprocity; it gives as much as it takes. She longs for the fullness of feelings and the combination of the inclinations of the mind, soul and body, but without erotic harmony for her, everything else can lose its meaning.

Passionate and sensual was the love of Aksinya and Grigory Melekhov in Sholokhov's novel The Quiet Flows the Don. She burned violently, softening Grigory's stern character and releasing the restrained passion of his nature. But, if not for the accident that cut off their love, this romantic feeling would hardly have been durable.

Knowing the type of relationship of this pair, and these are the “Superego” relationships, you can try to model them further development. On the one hand, love satiety could come, on the other hand, emotional overstrain, and as a result, mutual cooling, which is very destructive for this love.

E. Asadov showed what the actions of eros love can lead to. Let's listen to the poem "Lyalka".

Oh, what envy did not do!

Killed, drove me crazy

Made the girls suffer!

Here, listen, there is one true story.

Well, where to start? Here, perhaps!

The girl entered the class - a beginner.

The blond hair was neatly combed,

The smile never left his face.

All the guys, of course, got up

And the director interrupted the lesson.

The news quickly spread through the school.

Oh, beautiful, what an angel!

And I must confess, girls

I haven't seen this one yet.

Blue eyes blinked

As if spring was born in them.

The whole school loved the girl.

She was not proud of her beauty.

Her name was Lyalka, they just called her a doll.

He was an ataman in Seryozhka's class.

He was also famous for his beauty

And the girls stuck to him like that,

He only thought of someone else.

The girls understood all this.

One decided to take revenge

And the school instantly

The guys flashed slander.

Lyalka! Lyalka! 'Cause you don't know

What they say about you.

And only one did not believe Seryozhka.

Suddenly he got up and shouted “Be quiet.

After all, it's not true, it's not true!

Someone was playing a joke on her!

Anyway, I know the truth

And then don’t expect mercy!”

And here she is, knowing nothing,

She entered the class calmly.

As always face in a smile

And a blush plays in the cheeks.

Suddenly Seryozhka comes up to her quickly

And seriously he says to her:

“Listen, Lyalka, only without laughter.

It's right? Read the note."

Before that she was then.

Eyes ran across the sheet.

She smiled at him

But suddenly she closed her eyes.

"People! People! Why are you so strict?

People! People! Why are you like this?

And she rushed out of the classroom

Flickered through school doors.

School, yard, road, car ...

But she doesn't see anything.

Tears! Everything is filled with tears. Collapse!

He is next to her, Seryozhka.

She ran down the road.

The brakes suddenly screeched.

Lyalka lay under the wheels,

Closing your eyes in pain.

Lyalka, Lyalka, Lyalka.

Hear, don't you dare, wait!"

Tears flow from the eyes of the ataman.

Heart! The heart beats in a hot chest,

But Lyalka lies motionless

And eyelashes stuck together in the blood.

And only one girl hears:

“Lyalka, do you hear, don’t you dare, wait!”

And at the last minute of my life

Suddenly she said heavily:

"I love only you alone."

Lyalka was lying on the road.

Next to her lay the ataman,

And there were people around them.

Everyone understood this without words.

Who in this poem showed love-eros? (The girl who envied)

LOVE-MANIA.

Eros borders on love. Feeling - blind, romantic, very emotional, enslaving and loving, and the one to whom it is directed. It generates most of the tragedies.

"Mania" (from the Greek "mania" - a painful passion) - love-obsession, the basis of which is passion and jealousy. The ancient Greeks called mania "madness from the gods."

Such is the love of Anna Karenina and Vronsky. Their stormy, all-consuming and dramatic feelings, which they showed to each other and for the sake of which they made any sacrifices, did not stand the test of time. Vronsky and Anna eventually accumulated fatigue from the stormy emotions that at first attracted both of them by their high intensity. At the break, Anna lost much more than Vronsky, since she put everything at stake: family, child, position in society. Having lost everything and having received nothing in return, except for the collapse of illusions, Anna Karenina committed suicide. Love subjugated her and destroyed her.

Exactly the same outcome befell the hero famous story Kuprin "Garnet Bracelet", belonging to the same personality type, who, for the sake of his love, also put everything at stake, even committed a crime - embezzlement of public money to make a gift to his beloved woman. Without reciprocity on her part, life lost its meaning for him, and he decided to commit suicide.

As a result of such supervalue love, Shakespeare's heroes Romeo and Juliet perished. More often such an outcome takes love-Mania in combination with idealistic Agape.

And let's see what kind of attitude a guy should have towards a girl.

Video 2. Hit her. (03:20)

LOVE-FILIA.

Filia (Old Greek φιλία) - love-friendship, a more relaxed feeling. This is a deep spiritual closeness, which is built on a common interest or serving a common goal. It is driven by social connections and personal choice. It was philia in Plato's teaching about love that was elevated to the highest level.

For example,Antoine de Saint Exupery "The Little Prince" is the friendship of the Little Prince and the Fox, the friendship of the Little Prince and the rose. Lion and dog Tolstoy. They were such great friends that the lion could not come to terms with the loss of his mate.They devoted themselves entirely and completely to each other and found in each other everything necessary for happiness. Their relationship was full of respect and constant interest in each other.

For me, the real model of friendship is the magnificent four, A. Dumas. Athos, Porthos, Aramis and D'Artagnan. An example of real men, ready not only to save each other's lives, but also to defend the honor of a woman.

See another example of friendship:

Video 3. Welcome is back. (2:31)

LOVE-STORGE.

This is love, full of delicacy and tact, prone to constancy and compromise in order to maintain harmony in relationships. An ideal form of family love, based on the ability to maintain calm friendships for a long time, full of tenderness and simple, deeply human love for a partner, full of sympathy and indulgence for shortcomings. This love is liberating, when everyone can be himself, both soul and body; when they love a person simply for what he is. The only thing she does not forgive is rudeness, selfishness, pretense and insincerity, which are contrary to her very essence. The most valuable thing in it is attention to each other, even in small things.

Storge (ancient Greek στοργή) - love-tenderness, family love, full of gentle attention to the beloved. Tender family love over the years turns into love-habit. Pushkin wrote about her: “a habit from above is given to us, it is a substitute for happiness.”

The most outstanding literary example of habit love is Gogol's Old World Landowners. This story, which I consider Gogol's best, is simply the embodiment of Pushkin's immortal phrase. Old-world landowners - Pulcheria Ivanovna and Afanasy Ivanovich. They found their happiness, since both met the high moral requirements of love - Storge: fidelity, tact, mutual care, courtesy. Their relationship is simple and natural, without the elements of play and pathos inherent in the Manilov couple.

Natasha Rostova's love-Storge is vividly depicted in L. Tolstoy's novel War and Peace. In this example, we are talking about dual love. The imperiousness of Natasha (presumably, the type of Politician) and the possessive side of her love, manifested themselves in selfless love for her husband, who completely submitted to her soft power. Pierre's love is complemented by his sublime sacrifice and gratitude for the stability of family happiness.

This kind of love arises not only between husband and wife, but also between parents and children. In the video we will see the manifestation of this love:

Video 4. The best son. (3:26)

LOVE-AGAP.

Agape (ancient Greek ἀγάπη) - Spiritual love. It is full of sacrifice and self-denial. It is love for another and for the sake of another. The most sublime, beautiful, spiritual, idealistic feeling, for which time and distance are not afraid. The sensuous side of life can be sacrificed to a distant ideal. Even when people are together, the most important thing for them is spiritual closeness, poetic consonance of thoughts and feelings. At the same time, the commonality of occupations and hobbies is not as important as the similarity in outlook on life. This love is patient; she is able to wait for reciprocity for a long time and believe in it even with minimal chances.

Russian literary heroines very often "get stuck" in Agape. And Russian men really like it when they are selflessly loved. World religions call this love the highest of earthly human feelings. Jesus naturally loves all people with the love of Agape.

The grotesque image of this love was created by N. Gogol in the novel "Dead Souls" - these are the Manilovs. All their diplomatic skill and sacrifice of Agape's love, they focused on each other. Their mutual idealism and ability to build castles in the air did not betray them even in old age.

In the poem Dead Souls, the landowner Manilov is an exemplary family man and loving father. He is happily married and loves his wife dearly. Manilov is also the father of two small children. In general, a touching atmosphere of love and tenderness reigns in the Manilov family.

So, the characteristics of the Manilov family, as well as a description of his wife and children:

The members of the Manilov family are: wife Elizaveta (“Lizanka”), eldest son, youngest son. Also, a member of the family can be considered the home teacher of the Manilovs, who works with two sons.

Manilov and his wife have a very warm and tender relationship, despite the fact that they have been married for 8 years. Manilov's wife is a pleasant, hospitable and educated woman. Unfortunately, Manilov's wife is not engaged in farming and peasants, but no one in the house complains about this. "Lizanka" is so exalted that she is not interested in earthly affairs.

So, the quotation of Manilov's wife in "Dead Souls":

"... Let me introduce you to my wife [...] Darling!..."

“... Lizanka...” “... She was not bad, dressed to her face. A pale silk cloth hood sat well on her; her thin, small hand threw something hastily on the table and clutched a cambric handkerchief with embroidered corners. [...] Manilova spoke, even lisping a little...” “... His wife... however, they were completely pleased with each other. Despite the fact that more than eight years of their marriage had passed, each of them still brought to the other either a piece of an apple, or a candy, or a nut and spoke in a touchingly tender voice, expressing perfect love [...] There were surprises prepared for the birthday: what - some beaded case for a toothpick. And very often, sitting on the sofa, suddenly [...] they imprinted such a languid and long kiss on each other [...] In a word, they were, as they say, happy ... "" ... why is it rather empty in pantry? [...] But all these things are low, and Manilova was brought up well ... ”(Manilov’s wife did not take care of the household)“ ... The hostess very often turned to Chichikov with the words: “You don’t eat anything, you took very little” ... "(about the hospitality of Manilov's wife)

As mentioned earlier, world religions attribute the love of God to Agape.

God loves without any conditions and "if". This is the love of "Agape" (ἀγάπη). The Bible says that God is love: Beloved! Let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, becauseGod is love . God's love for us was revealed in the fact that God sent His Only Begotten Son into the world so that we would receive life through Him. This is love, that we did not love God, but He loved us and sent His Son as a propitiation for our sins. Beloved! If God so loved us, then we must also love one another. Nobody has ever seen God. If we love each other, then God abides in us, and His love is perfect in us.(1 John 4:7-12).

The Apostle Paul in the first epistle to the Corinthians in the thirteenth chapter reveals the properties of Divine love:Love is long-suffering, merciful, love does not envy, love does not exalt itself, is not proud, does not behave violently, does not seek its own, is not irritated, does not think evil, does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; covers everything, believes everything, hopes everything, endures everything. Love will never end.

Love Agape is ready to sacrifice everything for the good of another. Pay attention, this is not the selfish sacrifice inherent in love-mania! This is absolutely sincere love, from the bottom of my heart. Watch video:

Video 5. Turquoise beads. (2:36)

CONCLUSION:

There are many types of love that can be distinguished. But the most important form in which love brings happiness is agape love. I wish all of you that true sincere Love burns in your hearts, which will manifest itself in all areas of your life: family, friends, personal relationships.

Pay attention to the words of instruction and encouragement that are left in the Bible - the centuries-old book of Wisdom:

12. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.

13. There is no greater love than if someone lays down his life for his friends.

14. You are My friends if you do what I command you.

(Holy Gospel of John 15:12-14)

17. This I command you, that you love one another.

(Holy Gospel of John 15:17)

And of course from the literature: Video 6. Love and Cowardice (2:47)

Eduard Asadov - LOVE AND CORIDITY

Why is love so often fragile?

Dissimilarity of characters? Someone's narrowness?

The reasons cannot be listed exactly.

But the main thing is, perhaps, cowardice.

Yes, yes, not discord, not lack of passion,

Namely, cowardice is the root cause.

She is the same mine

What most often undermines happiness.

It is not true that we ourselves sometimes

We do not know the qualities of our soul.

Why should we lie to ourselves,

Basically, we know both

When we are bad and when we are good.

As long as a person does not know shocks,

It doesn't matter if it's good or bad

He usually allows himself in life

To be who he is. Yourself.

But the hour has come - a man falls in love

No, no, he's not going to refuse.

He is happy. He is passionate about being liked.

Here, notice, and there appears

Cowardice is a two-faced and silent enemy.

Worried, afraid for the outcome of love

And as if trying to dress up,

He tries to hide his flaws

She is to obscure her shortcomings.

So that, liking to be the best, the first,

To somehow "paint" own character,

The stingy become generous for a time,

Infidels - immediately terribly true.

And liars stand for the truth.

Trying to make the star shine brighter

Lovers standing on tiptoe

And they seem to be prettier and better.

"You love?" - "Of course!"

"And you me?" - "Yes!"

And that's it. Now they are husband and wife.

How long can you stand on tiptoe?

This is where the silence breaks...

Now that family days have become

There is no point in playing hide-and-seek.

And climb, like hell, into the light of shortcomings,

Well, where, really, were they?

Oh, if only to love without hiding anything,

Be yourself all your life

Then I wouldn't have to say with anguish:

"I didn't think you were like that!"

"I didn't know you were like that!"

And maybe, so that happiness comes in full,

You don't have to double your soul.

After all, courage, perhaps, is needed in love

No less than in space or in battle!

ADDITIONALLY:

LOVE-PRAGMA.

It is called rational love. This is a logical form of love that cannot arise spontaneously, be too sensual or spiritual. Moreover, if it is contrary to common sense and carries destructive tendencies, a person quickly recovers from it. As a rule, the one who expresses love-Pragma is not inclined to remember, experience and analyze his failure for a long time. What is not rational is discarded.

So, Pierre Bezukhov, in his first marriage to the beautiful Helen Kuragina, without meeting reciprocity on her part, quickly lost interest and easily crossed her out of his heart. Avoiding gossip in society, he maintained the appearance of this marriage for a long time, without trying to terminate it. At the same time, he gave his wife freedom in the choice of activities and entertainment. At the same time, Pierre did not worry about her betrayals. It was as if she didn't exist for him.

Love-Pragma is not necessarily a marriage of convenience, especially material. This is just a choice, or more precisely, the ability to get along with a partner who meets not abstract, but quite everyday requirements of a normal family life - calm and well-established in everyday life. Otherwise, disappointment and cooling will set in. A person with this form of love needs constancy in relationships and stability. A suitable partner becomes his favorite acquisition, which he takes care of like a good owner.

Such is the love of Nikolai Rostov with L.N. Tolstoy. Well portrayed and Somerset Maugham in the novel "Theater" on the example of a dual couple - actress Julia and her husband and director - Michael. Julia loved Michael with a calm family love-Storge, and Michael answered her with a sober, rational love-Pragma. They saw each other's shortcomings and treated them condescendingly. Even minor hobbies on the side did not affect the strength of their union. When Julia became very infatuated with Tom, she had the tact to hide it from her husband and not injure him. The storm swept past without affecting their family well-being.

LOVE-ANALYTA.

The coldest and most demanding kind of love. After the beginning, which is accompanied by emotions, like any passion or love, there comes a period of cold analysis, as a result of which many of the partner's virtues that nourished feelings at the beginning of love can fade. Those with the Analita love form tend to endow the partner with desirable but often illusory virtues during the first period of falling in love, the absence of which, on closer examination, can cool this feeling.

This form of love can sometimes make very peculiar requirements for a partner. A loved one “shoulds” so much, and even more “shouldn’t”, that it can be very difficult not to be disappointed in him over time. A marriage can be saved if it is based on a sense of duty, but the relationship can be very cool.

This is the most emotional independent form love that does not tolerate compromise in relationships. It is difficult for her to impose something or limit her in some way. A person with this form of relationship insists that his requirements be respected, but he himself is not always able to reckon with the requirements of a partner. This is a feeling from the mind, not from the heart, so he often lacks compassion, unless it is softened by an additional form of love that makes its own adjustments.

Prince Bolkonsky loved his daughter Mary so much. He devoted a lot of time to daily studies with her, trying to develop her abilities and intelligence, but did not care at all about arranging his daughter's personal life. The purpose of her life was to be constant self-education, the fulfillment of the requirements of her father and boundless love in response to his coldness. He did not understand that she could suffer because of this. Prince Bolkonsky was set up for a less vulnerable, more optimistic and self-confident partner. Such a person was for him the French governess Amelia. Her constant gaiety and talkativeness softened his stern disposition. He was especially impressed with the fact that she was not touchy. The daughter, on the contrary, has a form of love - Storge, absolutely opposite to love - Analita; she needed a more caring partner. That is why the relationship between father and daughter was so dramatic.

What happens if two people with the Analita relationship form fall in love? This was well shown by I. Turgenev in the novel "Fathers and Sons" on the example of the relationship between Evgeny Bazarov and Olga Odintsova. This relationship was reminiscent of the well-known fairy tale about the crane and the heron. Mutual respect and admiration continually gave way to bewilderment, since the partner did not support the initiative in expressing feelings. Their relationship lacked warmth, simplicity, and the ability to compromise.

Each saw in the other an attractive image of an equal partner in mind, but they were repelled by mutual independence. Both needed a partner capable of melting the ice of their rational feelings with his strong emotional expansion and at the same time capable of many concessions in order to preserve the relationship. A person with a form of love-Mania is capable of this.

Their intellectual duel showed that the requirements for each other will not be met, so it's better not to take risks, going for rapprochement. He was the first to show readiness for compromise, believing that a woman is a weaker creature and therefore sooner or later will give in to him, but Odintsova rejected his proposal in order to preserve her freedom. She understood that there would be a long struggle between them, which would not end in anything, since she was not the kind of woman who could obey. They broke up and it was the best thing they could do.

About jealousy (to Eros)

5th place. Jealousy is nothing less strong feeling than love. It is destructive in its essence and makes a person suffer, watching how the object of adoration is happy and serene in the company of the one he truly loves. Understanding jealousy is a rather complicated process, because this feeling absorbs a person so much that it does not give him the opportunity to soberly assess the current situation. Jealous, many experience love that borders on hatred, as confessed in his poem "Oh, do not disturb me ..." Fyodor Tyutchev. Leaving for his chosen one the right to personal happiness, the author, meanwhile, notes that they are both in love. But the feelings of the one to whom these lines are addressed are really pure and sublime. The jealous one, along with love, gets the bitterness of loss, annoyance at himself and awkwardness because, with his egoism, he destroys the image that he created in the soul of his beloved.

*** F. Tyutchev

Oh, do not disturb me reproach fair!

Believe me, of the two of us, yours is the most enviable:

You love sincerely and ardently, and I -

I look at you with jealous annoyance.

And, miserable sorcerer, before magical world,

Created by myself, without faith I stand -

And myself, blushing, I realize

Your living soul is a lifeless idol.

4th place. Jealousy, bordering on the loss of reason, is another aspect of this difficult and multifaceted feeling, which the Russian poet Nikolai Nekrasov tried to describe in words. His poem "Jealousy" is filled with pain and powerlessness in the face of the onslaught of an insidious enemy, which can poison the serene existence of any person. It is enough for just a small grain of jealousy to take root in the soul of someone who is in love, as the whole surrounding world loses its beauty and attractiveness, feelings and desires are dulled, and the heart is filled with cold rage, which is ready to splash out at every opportunity, causing pain to others.

"Jealousy" N. Nekrasov

There are moments of stubborn thoughts,

Destructive-pernicious,

Gloomy, violent, hellishly black,

These - dangerous as the plague -

Spenders of misfortune

Heralds of evil, thieves of happiness

And extinguishers of the mind! ..

Here in the fury of robbery

They broke into the chest, howling furiously, -

Everything is upside down! And all hell

Where an hour ago

Bright, iridescent diamond

Flamed your light - the mind!

Where is goodness, love and peace

Feasted an honest feast!

This hell ... In which of the earthly,

From the steppes and barren fields,

From these desperate lands

Full of cold and snow -

From Kamchatka ice rib

To the shores of the good homeland, -

In whom did he not boil violently?

Who is his - seized of passions,

Heartless rich -

Dare not to celebrate? ..

This hell ... he will throw jealousy

Into the soul of a mortal. Pushed apart

For him a wide path

In the human chest...

He comes with fire and crash,

He affectionately yells,

All different, bloody shine

Cover - and turn

Peace - in prison, joy - in flour,

Happiness - in sorrow, fun - in boredom,

Life - in the cemetery, tears - in the blood,

In poison and hatred - love!

Full of burning feelings

Screaming and languishing,

A person lives

In a terrible moment, that whole century!

Crowned with thorns, not myrtle,

Pray for death - death would be heaven!

But despair with alcohol

The skull is poured over the edge ...

Paradise to his troubled soul -

Destroy and curse

And daggers of the whole universe

Few fury to feed!!

3rd place. An attempt to curb this feeling, which knows no mercy, was made by the poet Eduard Asadov in his poem "Jealousy", trying to explain that the physical defeat of a more successful rival is not able to solve the problem. Moreover, with the help of fists, it is impossible to return the favor of a beloved. It remains only to honestly admit defeat to yourself and come to terms with the fact that fate turned out this way, and nothing else.

"Jealousy" E. Asadov

Moving your eyebrows, with firm steps

This evening under his feet

The snow crunches decisively and hard.

An hour ago, in the spacious hall of the club,

A motley whirlwind swirled, raged,

Heart sang, trumpets rumbled -

The youth ball was in full swing.

An hour ago he thought he would dispel

Suspicion bitter smoke

An hour ago he believed he owned

Still his treasure.

But when I saw my beloved

With the same long guy in a skullcap,

Evil snakes moved in the heart,

He watched, was silent and hated.

On the platform the stairs are empty

He saw how he hugged his girlfriend,

So they moved towards each other

They kissed once, then again...

No, they won't get away with it!

He's rejected, but he didn't give up.

He sums it all up for them.

In vain he, or something, was engaged in boxing!

Because with harsh steps

A guy walks near the intersection.

And not without reason under his feet

The snow crunches so hard and so hard.

Only for what to prepare revenge

And roll on the cheekbones nodules?

If the heart fails,

Will fists help here ?!

2nd place. However, humility in such matters is more characteristic of women, who are able to more cleverly disguise this unattractive feeling under the guise of indifference and irony. However, female jealousy is more insidious and inventive, and, guided by it, the representatives of the weaker sex are sometimes able to inflict deep spiritual wounds on their beloved. Evidence of this is Marina Tsvetaeva's poem "An Attempt at Jealousy", which is filled with sarcasm and a desire to humiliate the one to whom it is addressed.

"An attempt at jealousy" M. Tsvetaeva

How do you live with another, -

Easier right? - Kick the oar! -

Coastal line

Will the memory soon fade away

About me floating island

(On the sky - not on the waters)!

Souls, souls! - to be sisters to you,

Not mistresses - you!

How do you live with downtime

A woman? Without deities?

empress from the throne

Overthrow (from it descended),

How do you live - fuss -

Shrinking? Getting up - how?

With a duty of immortal vulgarity

How are you, poor man?

"Convulsions and interruptions -

Enough! I'll rent a house."

How do you live with anyone -

My chosen one!

More characteristic and edible -

Sned? Come on - do not blame ...

How do you live with likeness -

To you who trampled Sinai!

How do you live with someone else

Here? Rib - love?

Shame Zebus' reins

Doesn't whip your forehead?

How do you live - hello -

Maybe? Singing - how?

With a plague of immortal conscience

How are you, poor man?

How do you live with the goods

Market? Quit - cool?

After the marbles of Carrara

How do you live with dust

Gypsum? (From a block carved

God - and completely broken!)

How do you live with a hundred thousandth -

To you who know Lilith!

Market novelty

Are you full? Cool down to magic

How do you live with the earth

A woman, without a sixth

Feelings?..

Well, behind the head: happy?

Not? In a failure without depths -

How are you, honey? Is it harder

Is it the same as me with others?

1 place. Meanwhile, female jealousy most often results in a sophisticated and insidious revenge. In her poem "Jealousy", the poetess Mirra Lokhvitskaya admits that she is ready to endure all the torments of hell just to enjoy revenge and cause no less severe pain to the person she loves, and who simply betrayed her, crushing her feelings and hopes. However, it is still not worth counting on the fact that revenge will help get rid of jealousy, since only time heals such spiritual wounds.

"Jealousy" M. Lokhvitskaya

Where the juicy grass was as if crumpled,

I found a pink piece of ribbon.

And in the realm of joyful rays and aroma

A sigh passed - depressed, but deep.

Detained by a rosehip needle by accident,

Among the buds eager to bloom,

An unfortunate shred, a solved mystery,

You brought me painful news.

I will keep you, witness of deceit,

On a heart full of bitterness and evil,

So that his wound never heals,

So that my revenge was worthy!

Great German philosopher V.F. Hegel defined love as the highest "moral unity", as a feeling of complete harmony, renunciation of one's own selfish interests, forgetfulness of oneself, and in this forgetfulness is the acquisition of one's own "I". So, without fidelity there is no love. Moreover, fidelity is not only physical, but also spiritual, because to love means to devote yourself entirely to another, remaining devoted to your loved one both in body and in thought. This is the idea of ​​many works of Russian classics devoted to the problem of the correlation of these two moral categories: love and fidelity, their inseparability and unity.

1. Love knows no time, no barriers. In the story of I.A. Bunin's "Dark Alleys", the heroine meets the one who once abandoned her and betrayed their union into oblivion. He turns out to be a random guest at her inn. Per long years separation, they both changed, embarking on completely different paths in life. He hardly recognizes the woman he loved in the past. However, she carries her love for him through the years, remains lonely, preferring a life full of hard everyday work and life to family happiness. And only the very first and main feeling that she once experienced becomes the only happy memory, the very attachment, the loyalty of which she is ready to defend at the cost of loneliness, while realizing the failure and tragic doom of such an approach. “Youth passes for everyone, but love is another matter,” the heroine drops, as if in passing. She will not forgive the failed lover of betrayal, but at the same time she will still be faithful to love.
2. In the story of A.I. Kuprin's "Garnet Bracelet" fidelity of love reaches unprecedented heights, is the source of life, however, raising the hero above everyday life, destroys him. In the center of the story is a petty official Zheltkov, suffering from an unrequited passion that drives his every act. He is in love with a married woman, hardly aware of his existence. Having accidentally met Vera once, Zheltkov remains true to his high feeling, devoid of everyday vulgarity. He is aware of his lack of rights and the impossibility of reciprocity on the part of his beloved, but he cannot live otherwise. His tragic devotion is an exhaustive proof of sincerity and respect, because he still finds the strength to let go of his beloved woman, yielding, for the sake of her own happiness. Zheltkov is convinced that his loyalty does not oblige the princess to anything, it is only a manifestation of endless and disinterested love for her.
3. In the novel by A.S. Pushkin's "Eugene Onegin" the embodiment of love and fidelity in Pushkin's "encyclopedia of Russian life" becomes an archetypal image in Russian literature - Tatyana Larina. This is an integral nature, sincere in its impulses and feelings. Having fallen in love with Onegin, she writes him a letter, not afraid of being ridiculed and rejected. Eugene, on the other hand, turns out to be untenable in his choice. He is afraid of a sincere feeling, does not want to become attached, therefore, he is incapable of a decisive act and a mature feeling, therefore he rejects the heroine. Having survived the rejection, Tatyana, nevertheless, is devoted to her first love to the end, although she marries at the insistence of her parents. When Onegin comes to her again, but already overwhelmed with passion, she refuses him, because she cannot deceive her husband's trust. In the struggle between fidelity to love and fidelity to duty, the former wins: Tatyana rejects Yevgeny, but does not cease to love him, remaining spiritually devoted to him, despite the outward choice in favor of duty.
4. Love and fidelity found their place in the work of M. Bulgakov, in the novel "The Master and Margarita". Indeed, this book is largely about love, eternal and perfect, banishing doubts and fear from the soul. The heroes are torn between love and duty, but remain true to their feelings to the end, choosing love as the only possible salvation from the evil of the outside world, full of sin and vices. Margarita leaves the family, abandons her former life, full of peace and comfort - she does everything and sacrifices everything, if only at the cost of selfless devotion to find happiness. She is ready for any step - even for a contract with Satan and his entourage. If this is the price of love, she is ready to pay it.
5. In the novel by L.N. Tolstoy "War and Peace" the path of love and fidelity in storyline each of the many heroes are very confused and ambiguous. Many of the characters in the novel fail to remain faithful to their feelings, sometimes due to their young age and inexperience, sometimes due to mental weakness and inability to forgive. However, the fates of some heroes prove the existence of true and pure love, unstained by hypocrisy and treason. So, taking care of Andrei, wounded on the battlefield, Natasha makes amends for the mistake of her youth and becomes a mature woman capable of sacrificial and devoted affection. Pierre Bezukhov, in love with Natasha, also remains of his opinion, not listening to dirty gossip about escaping with Anatole. They came together after the death of Bolkonsky, being already mature people, ready to honestly and steadfastly keep home from the temptations and evil of the surrounding world. Another fateful meeting is the meeting of Nikolai Rostov and Marya Bolkonskaya. And even if their joint happiness did not settle right away, however, thanks to the sincere disinterested love of both, these two loving hearts were able to overcome conditional barriers and build a happy family.
6. In love, the character of a person is known: if he is faithful, then he is strong and honest, if not, he is weak, vicious and cowardly. In the novel by F.M. Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment", where the characters are tormented by a sense of their own imperfection and insurmountable sinfulness, nevertheless, there was a place for pure and true love, capable of giving consolation and peace of mind. Each of the heroes is sinful, but the desire to atone for the crimes committed pushes them into each other's arms. Rodion Raskolnikov and Sonya Marmeladova together fight the cruelty and injustice of the outside world, defeating them, first of all, in themselves. Therefore, it is not surprising that they, spiritually connected, are true to their love no matter what. Sonya and Rodion accept a joint cross and go to hard labor to heal their souls and start living anew.
7. The story of A. Kuprin "Olesya" is another a prime example pure, sublime love. The heroine lives in solitude, so in her feelings she is natural and spontaneous. She is alien to the mores of the village people, alien to outdated traditions and inveterate prejudices. Love for her is freedom, a simple and strong feeling, independent of laws and opinions. Due to her sincerity, the girl is not capable of pretense, therefore she loves Ivan selflessly and sacrificially. However, faced with the superstitious anger and hatred of fanatical peasants, the heroine escapes with her mentor and does not want to involve her chosen one in an alliance with the "witch" so as not to bring trouble on him. In her soul, she forever remains faithful to the hero, because in her worldview there are no barriers to love.
8. Love transforms the human heart, making it compassionate and vulnerable, but at the same time incredibly brave and strong. In the novel by A.S. Pushkin's "The Captain's Daughter" outwardly weak and insolvent heroes eventually change and improve each other, showing miracles of loyalty and courage. The love that arose between Pyotr Grinev and Masha Mironova makes a real man and soldier out of a provincial undergrowth, and out of a sickly and sensitive captain's daughter, a faithful and devoted woman. So, for the first time, Masha shows her character when she refuses Shvabrin's offer. And the refusal to marry Grinev without parental blessing reveals the spiritual nobility of the heroine, who is ready to sacrifice personal happiness for the well-being of a loved one. Love story against the backdrop of significant historical events only enhances the contrast between external circumstances and the true attachment of hearts, which is not afraid of obstacles.
9. The theme of love and fidelity is a source of inspiration for literature that raises the question of the relationship between these moral categories in the context of life and creativity. One of the archetypal images of eternal love in world literature are the main characters of Shakespeare's tragedy "Romeo and Juliet".
   Young people strive for happiness, despite the fact that they belong to warring families. In their love, they are far ahead of the time, full of medieval prejudices. Sincerely believing in the triumph of noble feelings, they defy conventions, proving at the cost of their own lives that love can overcome any obstacles. To give up feeling for them is to commit a betrayal. Consciously choosing death, each of them puts loyalty above life. Readiness for self-sacrifice makes the heroes of the tragedy immortal symbols of ideal, but tragic love.
10. In the novel by M. A. Sholokhov "Quiet Flows the Don" relations and feelings actors allow the reader to appreciate the power of passion and devotion. The ambiguity of the circumstances in which the characters find themselves is complicated by the intertwining of emotional ties that connect the characters of the novel and hinder the acquisition of long-awaited happiness. The relationship of the characters proves that love and loyalty can be different. Aksinya, in her devotion to Gregory, appears as a passionate nature, ready for self-sacrifice. She is able to follow her loved one anywhere, is not afraid of general condemnation, leaves her home, rejecting the opinion of the crowd. Quiet Natalia also loves devotedly, but hopelessly, tormented and tormented by inseparable feelings, while remaining faithful to Gregory, who does not ask her about it. Natalya forgives her husband's indifference, his love for another woman.

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According to ordinary notions, love and marriage are synonymous, stem from the same source, and respond to the same human needs. But, like most ordinary ideas, this is not based on actual facts, but on prejudice.

Marriage and love have nothing in common, they are just as opposite as the poles, in fact they are antagonistic towards each other. No doubt some marriages have grown out of love. But this is not because love can only assert itself through marriage. On the contrary, it is rather due to the fact that only a few people were able to outgrow the boundaries of custom. Today there are a huge number of men and women for whom marriage is nothing but a farce, but who submit to this institution solely due to the influence of public opinion. In any case, although some marriages are indeed based on love, even though sometimes love continues in marriage, I believe that this happens independently of marriage, and not at all because of it.

On the other hand, the notion that love can be the result of marriage is completely false. Sometimes we have to hear about miraculous cases when married people fall in love with each other, but a close examination of these cases will show that this is only getting used to the inevitable. Of course, the gradual getting used to each other has nothing to do with the spontaneity, intensity and beauty of love feeling, without which the intimate side of marriage is likely to be humiliating for both man and woman.

Therefore, the lines that Dante placed above the entrance to hell - "Abandon hope, everyone who enters here" - can equally be applied to marriage.

Marriage is a failure that only the most stupid people will deny. One need only glance at the divorce statistics to understand what a failure the institution of marriage really is. To understand these statistics, the typical philistine arguments about the leniency of divorce laws and the growing promiscuity of women are not suitable. First, every twelfth marriage ends in divorce; secondly, the number of divorces per thousand people has increased since 1870 from 28 to 73; thirdly, adultery as a reason for divorce has increased by 270.8% since 1867; fourthly, the number of leaving the family increased by 369.8%.

In addition to statistics, there is a large number of works, dramatic and literary, shed additional light on this topic. (...) many writers reveal the futility, monotony, poverty and inadequacy of marriage as a factor in achieving harmony and understanding between people.

The serious social researcher should not be satisfied with the common superficial explanation of this phenomenon. He must dig deeper into the very life of the two sexes to find out why marriage is such a disaster.

Edward Carpenter notes that behind every marriage there is a combination of two worlds, male and female, so different from each other that a man and a woman must remain strangers. Fenced by an insurmountable wall of prejudices, customs, habits, marriage hardly involves the improvement of knowledge about each other, respect for each other, without which any union is doomed to failure.

Henrik Ibsen, who hated any social pretense, may have been the first to realize this great truth. Nora leaves her husband not because (as a narrow-minded critic would point out) that she is tired of her duties or feels the need to fight for the rights of women, but because she has come to the conclusion that she has lived with a stranger for eight years and bore him children. Can there be anything more humiliating than a lifelong union of two alien beings? A woman does not need to know anything about a man, she should only worry about his income. And what should a man know about a woman besides the fact that she has a pleasant appearance? We have not yet outgrown the biblical myth that a woman has no soul, that she is just an appendage of a man, created from his rib, for the convenience of a gentleman who was so strong that he was afraid of his own shadow.

Or maybe the low quality of the material from which the woman was created was the reason for her inferiority? One way or another, a woman has no soul - so why know anything about her? In addition, the less soul she has, the better her qualities as a wife, the more readily she will dissolve in her husband. This slavish submission to male superiority has kept the institution of marriage comparatively intact for so long. Now, when a woman begins to realize her significance, to realize herself as a being over which the master has no power, the sacred institution of marriage is gradually losing its role, and no sentimental mourning will help this.

Almost from infancy, the girl is told about marriage as the ultimate goal; therefore, her upbringing and education are subordinated precisely to this. Like a dumb creature fattening for slaughter, she is being prepared for marriage. Yet, strange as it may seem, she is allowed to know much less about her appointment as a wife and mother than an ordinary artisan knows about his craft. It is indecent and obscene for a girl from a respectable family to know anything about intimate life. In the name of obscure respectability, marriage passes off filth and abomination as the purest and most sacred agreement that no one will dare to question or criticize. This is precisely the attitude of the average supporter of marriage. future wife and the mother is kept completely in the dark about her only competitive advantage - sex. Thus, she enters into a lifelong relationship with a man only to feel shocked, disliked, insulted beyond measure by the most natural and healthy instinct, which is sex. It can be said without hesitation that much of the unhappiness, poverty, want and physical suffering in marriage is the result of criminal ignorance in matters of sex, ignorance that is passed off as the greatest of virtues. It would not be an exaggeration to say that not one family broke up because of this unfortunate fact.

If, however, a woman is free enough, if she is mature enough to penetrate the secrets of sex without the sanction of the state or the church, she will be branded with disgrace, declared unworthy to become the wife of a "decent" man, whose whole decency lies only in an empty head and a lot of money. . Can there be anything more offensive than the idea that a healthy adult woman, full of life and passion, should resist the needs of nature, should tame her most passionate desire, thereby undermining her health and subduing her spirit, should restrict herself in dreams and visions, to refrain from deep and magnificent sexual desire until a "decent" man appears and takes her as his wife? That is what marriage means. Can such an alliance end otherwise than in failure? Here is one, and by no means the last, factor of marriage that distinguishes it from love.

Our age is the age of practicality. The times when Romeo and Juliet risked the wrath of their fathers in the name of love, when Gretchen was not ashamed of gossip gossip for the sake of love, are long gone. If, in rare cases, young people allow themselves the luxury of romance, the elders immediately intervene, hammering wisdom into them until they “get smart”.

The lesson of morality that is presented to the girl is not whether a man aroused love in her, it boils down to one question: “How much?” The only deity of practical Americans is money; the main question of life: “Can a man earn a living? Will he be able to support his wife? It's the only thing that justifies marriage. Gradually, these ideas permeate every thought of the girl; she dreams not of moonlight and kisses, of laughter and tears; she dreams of cheap shops and bargains. This poverty of soul and stinginess are generated by the institution of marriage. The state and the church do not recognize another ideal, since it is the only one that allows the state and the church to completely control people.

Without a doubt, there are people who continue to look at love without paying attention to dollars and cents. This truth is especially evident in relation to the class that is forced to take care of itself, by its own labor. The tremendous change in the position of women, generated by this powerful factor, is truly phenomenal, especially if we remember that the woman appeared on the industrial arena quite recently. Six million working women; six million women equal with men in the right to be exploited, robbed, go on strike and even starve to death. Continue, my lord? Yes, six million employed in a variety of industries: from the highest mental labor to mines and railways; Yes, there are even detectives and policemen among them. Truly, complete emancipation!

The woman views her position as a worker as transitional, expecting to be kicked out at the first opportunity. That is why it is much more difficult to organize women than men. “Why should I join a union? I'm going to get married, I'll have my own house." Wasn't that what she'd been told since infancy as her final calling? Pretty soon, she learns that although the house is not as huge as a prison called a factory, it has much more powerful doors and bars. And its keeper is so devoted to his work that nothing escapes him. The most tragic thing, however, is that the house no longer frees the woman from hard labor, but only increases the number of her duties.

According to the latest statistics presented to the Committee on Labor, Wages and Overcrowding, 10 percent of women workers in New York alone are married, but they are forced to continue to work in the world's lowest paid job. Add to this horror exhausting housework - what then remains of the "security" of the house and its glory? In fact, even a married woman from the "middle class" cannot talk about her house, since her husband is the complete master in it. It doesn't matter if the husband is rude or loving. I mean that marriage provides a woman with a home only because of her husband. She moves into his house and stays in it for years, until her personal life turns into something sluggish, limited and boring, like her surroundings. It is not surprising that a woman becomes absurd, petty, irritable, unbearable, becomes a gossip, thereby driving her husband out of the house. She has nowhere to go, even if she wanted to. In addition, the short period of marriage and complete subordination of a woman makes her completely unfit for life. She becomes indifferent to her own appearance, loses her ease of movement, hesitates to make decisions, is afraid to express her judgment - that is, she turns into a boring creature that most men hate and despise. An amazingly inspiring atmosphere in order to give birth to a new life in it, isn't it?

But how can a child be protected if not through marriage? After all, isn't that the most important consideration? But what emptiness and hypocrisy is behind it! Marriage protects children, and at the same time, thousands of children find themselves without guardianship and a roof over their heads. Marriage protects children, while at the same time, orphanages and correctional facilities are overcrowded, and the Society for the Protection of Children from Abuse is busy rescuing little victims from their "loving" parents and transferring them to even more caring hands of welfare organizations. It's just a joke!

Marriage may bring a horse to water, but does it ever let it drink? The law may place the father of a child under arrest and provide him with a prison uniform, but will it save the child from starvation? And if a parent is unemployed or hiding, how will marriage help in this case? They talk about the law only when a person needs to be presented to the court of “justice”, when he needs to be placed behind bars, but even in this case, the state, and not the child, will use the fruits of his labor. The child gets memories of daddy's dirty striped robe.

It looks like another paternalistic contract - capitalism. It steals from man the rights given to him from birth, retards his development and growth, poisons his body, keeps him in ignorance, poverty and dependence in order to then establish charitable societies that thrive on the last remnants of human self-respect.

If motherhood is the highest destiny female nature, what more protection is needed, except for love and freedom? Marriage only defiles, insults, and corrupts that destiny. One of his provisions is "only by following me, you will give the continuation of life." These regulations doom a woman to the scaffold, humiliate and shame her if she refuses to buy the right of motherhood by selling herself. Only marriage sanctioned motherhood, even conceived in hatred under duress. If motherhood were the result of free choice, love, passion, bold feeling, would society place a crown of thorns on an innocent head and carve in bloody letters this disgusting epithet "illegitimate"? If marriage were to absorb all the virtues with which it is adorned, then crimes against motherhood would erase it forever from the sphere of love.

Love, the strongest and deepest thing in life, a harbinger of hope, joy, passion; love that denies any laws and any regulations; love, the freest and most powerful creator of human destiny, how can this indomitable force equate itself with that miserable creation of the state and the church - with marriage?

Free love? As if love could be different! A man buys intelligence, but all the millions of the world will not buy love. A man subjugates his body, but all the power of the earth is not able to subjugate love. A man conquered entire nations, but any army is powerless before love. The man chained and entangled the spirit, but he is completely helpless before love. High on the throne, with all the luxury and splendor that his gold can provide him, a man remains miserable and lonely if love bypasses him. But if she comes to him, the hut of the last poor man begins to glow with warmth, life, light. Only love has the magical power to make a beggar a king. Yes, love is free and cannot exist in any other atmosphere. In freedom, she gives herself disinterestedly, completely, without a trace. All legal provisions, all judgments of the universe cannot wipe love from the face of the earth, as soon as it has taken root on it. If the soil is barren, how can marriage fertilize it? This is only the last desperate struggle of elusive life with death.

Love doesn't need protection; She is her own protection. And as long as love remains the creator of life, no child will be abandoned, hungry or tortured. I know it's true. I know women who chose motherhood outside of marriage, although they loved the fathers of their children. Not many “legitimate” children enjoy the care, the protection, the attention that free motherhood bestows.

The defenders of power fear the emergence of free motherhood, because it will deprive them of their prey. Who will fight? Who will create wealth? Who will produce police officers and jailers if women refuse to raise children unquestioningly? Nation, nation! shout kings, presidents, capitalists, priests. It is necessary to save the nation, even if a woman turns into a simple machine. At the same time, the institution of the family is the only valve for releasing steam, which makes it possible to avoid the harmful sexual emancipation of a woman. But these frantic attempts to maintain a state of enslavement are futile. In vain are the edicts of the church, and the insane attacks of those in power, and even the hand of the law. Woman no longer desires to be part of the production of a race of sick, weak, decrepit and unfortunate human beings who have neither the strength nor the moral courage to throw off the yoke of poverty and slavery. Instead, she wants to have fewer children, which she will raise in love and raise better, and that this will be the result of her free choice, and not the coercion that marriage brings with it. Our pseudo-moralists have yet to grow up to a deep sense of responsibility towards the child, which has already awakened in the breast of a woman thanks to the love of freedom. She would rather give up the joy of motherhood than bring new life into a world that breathes destruction and death. And if she becomes a mother, then in order to give the child the deepest and best that is in herself. Her motto is to grow up with the child, and she knows that only in this way can she bring up in him true masculinity or femininity.

Ibsen must have imagined a free mother when he painted a portrait of Madame Alving with masterful strokes. She was the perfect mother because she outgrew the limits of marriage and all its horrors, because she broke the chains and let her spirit soar freely until it gave her back her identity, reborn and strong. Alas, it came too late to save the joy of her life, Oswald, but not too late to realize that love, with freedom, is the only condition for a truly beautiful life. Those who, like Mrs. Alving, have paid with blood and tears for their spiritual transformation, denounce marriage as a fraud, an empty and petty mockery. They know that the only creative, inspiring, uplifting basis for the emergence new race people, the new world is love, whether it lasts only a short time or lasts forever.

In our current truly pygmy state, love and truth are foreign to most people. Misunderstood and expelled from everywhere, it rarely takes root anywhere; and if it does, it soon dries up and dies. Its delicate fabric does not withstand the stress and tension of everyday exhausting work. Her soul is too complex to adapt to the vile barking of our social structure. She cries and suffers along with those who need her so much, but at the same time are not able to rise to her heights.

Someday, men and women will rise and ascend the mountain peak, they will meet, strong and free, ready to experience love and warm themselves in its golden rays. What imagination, what poetic genius, can foretell, even approximately, the possibilities of such a force in the life of men? If the world ever knows true togetherness and intimacy, love will be the parent, not marriage.

Modern statistics on divorces in Russia also speak volumes - approx. ed.

The heroine of the play of the same name

The heroine of the play "Ghosts"