[The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories by Leo Tolstoi]@TWC D-Link bookThe Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories CHAPTER XVII 3/12
She is superior to man as a young girl, and when she becomes a wife in our society, where there is no need to work in order to live, she becomes superior, also, by the gravity of the acts of generation, birth, and nursing. "Woman, in bringing a child into the world, and giving it her bosom, sees clearly that her affair is more serious than the affair of man, who sits in the Zemstvo, in the court.
She knows that in these functions the main thing is money, and money can be made in different ways, and for that very reason money is not inevitably necessary, like nursing a child.
Consequently woman is necessarily superior to man, and must rule. But man, in our society, not only does not recognize this, but, on the contrary, always looks upon her from the height of his grandeur, despising what she does. "Thus my wife despised me for my work at the Zemstvo, because she gave birth to children and nursed them.
I, in turn, thought that woman's labor was most contemptible, which one might and should laugh at. "Apart from the other motives, we were also separated by a mutual contempt.
Our relations grew ever more hostile, and we arrived at that period when, not only did dissent provoke hostility, but hostility provoked dissent.
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