They have little or nothing of what may be termed the Hermann and Dorothea element in their composition, and consequently know very little about those sentimental, romantic ideas which we habitually associate with the preliminary steps to matrimony.

Even those authors who endeavour to idealise peasant life have rarely ventured to make their story turn on a sentimental love affair.

Certainly in real life the wife is taken as a helpmate, or in plain language a worker, rather than as a companion, and the mother-in-law leaves her very little time to indulge in fruitless dreaming.
As time wore on, and his father became older and frailer, Ivan's visits to his native place became longer and more frequent, and when the old man was at last incapable of work, Ivan settled down permanently and undertook the direction of the household.

In the meantime his own children had been growing up.

When I knew the family it comprised--besides two daughters who had married early and gone to live with their parents-in-law--Ivan and his wife, two sons, three daughters-in-law, and an indefinite and frequently varying number of grandchildren.