According to popular belief, love and marriage are synonymous, spring from the same source, and respond to the same human needs. But, like most common beliefs, this is based not on actual facts, but on prejudices.

Marriage and love have nothing in common, they are as opposite as poles, in fact they are antagonistic towards each other. Without a doubt, some marriages grew out of love. But this is not because love can only assert itself through marriage. On the contrary, it is rather explained by the fact that only a few people were able to outgrow the custom. Today there are a huge number of men and women for whom marriage is nothing more than 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, although sometimes love continues into marriage, I believe that this happens independently of the marriage, and not at all because of it.

On the other hand, the idea that love can be the result of marriage is completely false. Sometimes we 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 just getting used to the inevitable. Of course, gradually getting used to each other has nothing to do with the spontaneity, intensity and beauty of love, without which the intimate side of marriage will most likely turn out to be humiliating for both men and women.

Therefore, the lines that Dante placed above the entrance to hell - “Abandon hope, all who enter here” - can equally be applied to marriage.

Marriage is a failure that only the stupidest people will deny. You only need to take a look at the divorce statistics to understand what a failure the institution of marriage really is. To understand these statistics, typical philistine arguments about the laxity of divorce laws and the growing promiscuity of women are not suitable. Firstly, every twelfth marriage ends in divorce; secondly, the number of divorces per thousand people has increased since 1870 from 28 to 73; third, 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 the statistics, there are a large number of works, dramatic and literary, that shed further light on this topic. (...) many writers reveal the sterility, monotony, squalor and inadequacy of marriage as a factor in achieving harmony and understanding between people.

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

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

Henrik Ibsen, who hated all social pretense, was perhaps the first to recognize this great truth. Nora leaves her husband not because (as a narrow-minded critic would note) she is tired of her responsibilities or feels the need to fight for women's rights, but because she has come to the conclusion: she lived for eight years with a stranger and bore him children. Can there be anything more humiliating than a lifelong union of two alien beings? A woman has no need to know anything about a man, she should only worry about his income. What should a man know about a woman besides the fact that she has a good 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? Moreover, 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. Nowadays, when a woman begins to realize her importance, to realize herself as a being over whom 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 to this. Like a dumb creature fattened for slaughter, it is prepared for marriage. However, oddly enough, she is allowed to know much less about her purpose as a wife and mother than an ordinary artisan knows about her craft. It is indecent and indecent for a girl from a respectable family to know anything about intimate life. In the name of obscure respectability, marriage passes off dirt and filth as the purest and most sacred agreement that no one dares question or criticize. This is precisely the attitude towards marriage of the average supporter. The future wife and mother is kept in complete ignorance 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 that is sex. It can be said without hesitation that a large proportion of unhappiness, poverty, want and physical suffering in marriage is the result of a criminal ignorance in matters of sex, an ignorance that is passed off as the greatest of virtues. It would not be an exaggeration to say that more than one family has broken up due to 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 church, she will be branded with shame, declared unworthy to become the wife of a “decent” man, whose entire 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 crushing her spirit, should limit herself in dreams and visions, to abstain from deep and magnificent sexual desire until a “decent” person comes along and takes her as his wife? This is what marriage means. How can such a union end otherwise than in failure? Here is one, and not 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 for the sake of love Gretchen was not ashamed of gossip gossip, are long gone. If, on rare occasions, young people allow themselves the luxury of romance, their elders immediately intervene, hammering wisdom into them until they “get their wits.”

The moral lesson that is taught to a girl is not whether a man aroused love in her, it comes 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? This is the only thing that justifies marriage. Gradually these ideas permeate the girl’s every thought; she dreams not of moonlight and kisses, of laughter and tears; she dreams of cheap stores and bargains. This poverty of soul and stinginess are generated by the institution of marriage. The state and church do not recognize another ideal, since it is the only one that allows the state and 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 obvious in relation to the class that is forced to take care of itself through its own labor. The colossal changes in the position of women brought about by this powerful factor are truly phenomenal, especially if we remember that women entered the industrial arena only recently. Six million working women; six million women, equal with men in the right to be exploited, robbed, participate in strikes and even die of hunger. Continue, my lord? Yes, six million, employed in a variety of industries: from the highest mental work to mines and railroads; Why, there are even detectives and policemen among them. Truly, complete emancipation!

The woman views her position as a worker as transitional, expecting to be thrown out at the first opportunity. This 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 this what she had been told from infancy as her ultimate calling? Pretty soon she learns that although the house is not as huge as the prison called the 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 a woman from hard labor, but only increases the number of her responsibilities.

According to the latest statistics presented to the Committee on Labor, Wages and Overpopulation, ten percent of women workers in New York City alone are married, but they are forced to continue to work in the lowest paid jobs in the world. Add to this horror the exhausting work around the house - 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 home, since her husband is the complete owner of it. It doesn't matter if your husband is rude or loving. I want to say that marriage provides a woman with a home only thanks to her husband. She moves into his house and stays there for years until her personal life becomes as dull, limited, and boring as her surroundings. It is not surprising that a woman becomes quarrelsome, petty, irritable, unbearable, and 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 subjugation of a woman makes her completely unsuitable for life. She becomes indifferent to her own appearance, loses ease of movement, hesitates to make decisions, is afraid to express judgment - that is, she turns into a boring creature that most men hate and despise. It’s an amazingly inspiring atmosphere to give birth to a new life, 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 lies behind it! Marriage protects children, but at the same time thousands of children find themselves without guardianship and a roof over their heads. Marriage protects children, but at the same time, orphanages and correctional facilities are overcrowded, and the Society for the Protection of Children from Abuse is busy rescuing young victims from their “loving” parents and transferring them to even more caring hands trustee organizations. This is just a joke!

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

This is similar to another paternalistic contract - capitalism. It robs a person of 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 grow magnificently on the last vestiges of human self-respect.

If motherhood is the highest destiny of female nature, what other protection is needed than love and freedom? Marriage only defiles, insults and corrupts this purpose. One of his provisions is “only by following me will you give continuation of life.” These institutions condemn a woman to the chopping block, humiliate and shame her if she refuses to buy the right to motherhood by selling herself. Only marriage sanctions motherhood, even if conceived in hatred under duress. If motherhood were the result of free choice, love, passion, courageous feeling, would society place a crown of thorns on an innocent head and carve in bloody letters that disgusting epithet “illegitimate”? If marriage absorbed all the virtues with which it is decorated, then crimes against motherhood would forever erase it from the sphere of love.

Love, the strongest and deepest thing in life, the 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 pitiful creation of the state and church - with marriage?

Free love? As if love could be anything else! A man buys intelligence, but all the millions in the world cannot buy love. A man subjugates his body, but all the power of the earth is unable to subjugate love. A man has conquered entire nations, but any army is powerless before love. The man has 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 unhappy and lonely if love bypasses him. But if she comes to him, the shack 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 selflessly, completely, without reserve. All the laws, all the courts of the universe cannot erase love from the face of the earth, once it has taken root on it. If the soil is barren, can marriage fertilize it? This is just the last desperate battle of an elusive life with death.

Love does not need protection; She is her own defense. And as long as love remains the creator of life, not a single 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, protection, and attention that free motherhood provides.

Defenders of power fear the emergence of free motherhood, since it will deprive them of their prey. Who will fight? Who will create wealth? Who will produce policemen and jailers if women refuse to raise children unquestioningly? Nation, nation! - shout kings, presidents, capitalists, priests. It is necessary to preserve 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 allows one to avoid the harmful sexual emancipation of a woman. But these crazy attempts to maintain the state of enslavement are futile. The edicts of the church, the insane attacks of those in power, and even the hand of the law are in vain. Woman no longer wishes to be part of the production of a race of sick, weak, decrepit and miserable 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, whom she raises lovingly and better, and so that this is the result of her free choice, and not the coercion that comes with marriage. Our pseudo-moralists will still have to grow into a deep sense of responsibility towards the child, which has already awakened in a woman’s chest 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 with the child, and she knows that only in this way can she cultivate true masculinity or femininity in him.

Ibsen must have imagined a free mother when he painted the portrait of Mrs. Alving with masterful strokes. She was the perfect mother because she outgrew the confines of marriage and all its horrors, because she broke the chains and allowed her spirit to 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, subject to freedom, is the only condition for true have a wonderful life. Those who, like Mrs. Alving, paid with blood and tears for their spiritual transformation condemn marriage as a deception, an empty and petty mockery. They know that the only creative, inspiring, uplifting basis for the emergence of a new race of people, a new world, is love, whether it lasts only a short time or lasts forever.

In our current truly pygmy state, love is truly alien to most people. Misunderstood and expelled from everywhere, it rarely takes root anywhere; and if this happens, it soon dries up and dies. Its delicate fabric cannot withstand the stress and strain of daily backbreaking 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 climb to the mountain peak, they will meet, strong and free, ready to experience love and bask in its golden rays. What imagination, what poetic genius can, even approximately, predict the possibilities of such a force in people's lives? If the world is ever going to know true togetherness and intimacy, it will be love, not marriage, that will be the parent.

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"

The great German philosopher W.F. Hegel defined love as the highest “moral unity”, as a feeling of complete harmony, renunciation of one’s own selfish interests, oblivion of oneself, and in this oblivion - the acquisition of one’s own “I”. This means that without fidelity there is no love. Moreover, fidelity is not only physical, but also spiritual, because to love means to completely devote oneself to another, remaining devoted to the loved one both in body and in thought. This is the idea of ​​many works of Russian classics, dedicated to the problem of the relationship between these two moral categories: love and fidelity, their inseparability and unity.

1. Love knows neither time nor barriers. In the story by I.A. Bunin's "Dark Alleys" the heroine meets the one who once abandoned her and consigned their union to oblivion. He turns out to be a random guest at her inn. Over the long years of separation, they both changed, taking 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 everyday life to family happiness. And only the very first and most important feeling that she once experienced becomes the only happy memory, that very attachment, the fidelity of which she is ready to defend at the cost of loneliness, while realizing the inconsistency and tragic doom this approach. “Everyone’s youth passes, but love is a different matter,” the heroine drops as if in passing. She will not forgive her failed lover for betrayal, but at the same time she will still be faithful to love.
2. In the story by A.I. Kuprin’s “Garnet Bracelet”, fidelity to love reaches unprecedented heights, is the source of life, however, elevating the hero above everyday life, it destroys him. At the center of the story is a petty official, Zheltkov, suffering from an unrequited passion that drives his every action. He's in love with married woman, barely suspecting its existence. Having met Vera by chance one day, Zheltkov remains true to his high feeling, devoid of everyday vulgarity. He realizes his lack of rights and the impossibility of reciprocity on the part of his beloved, but cannot live otherwise. His tragic devotion is exhaustive proof of sincerity and respect, because he still finds the strength to let go of the woman he loves, yielding, for the sake of her happiness. Zheltkov is convinced that his loyalty does not oblige the princess to anything, it is just a manifestation of the endless and selfless love To 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, without fear of being ridiculed and rejected. Evgeniy turns out to be untenable in his choice. He is afraid of sincere feelings, does not want to get attached, therefore, he is incapable of decisive action and mature feelings, and therefore rejects the heroine. Having survived the refusal, Tatyana, nevertheless, is devoted to her first love to the end, although she gets married at the insistence of her parents. When Onegin comes to her again, but already overwhelmed by passion, she refuses him, because she cannot betray her husband’s trust. In the struggle between fidelity to love and fidelity to duty, the first wins: Tatyana rejects Eugene, but does not stop loving him, remaining mentally devoted to him, despite the external choice in favor of duty.
4. Love and fidelity also found their place in the works of M. Bulgakov, in the novel “The Master and Margarita”. Indeed, this book is largely about love, eternal and perfect, expelling doubt 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 - we do everything and sacrifice everything, just to find happiness at the cost of selfless devotion. She is ready to take any step - even to make a contract with Satan and his entourage. If this is the price of love, she is ready to pay it.
5. In the novel L.N. In Tolstoy's War and Peace, the paths of love and fidelity in the storyline of each of the many characters are very confusing 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, untainted by hypocrisy and betrayal. Thus, taking care of Andrei, wounded on the battlefield, Natasha makes up 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 unconvinced, not listening to dirty gossip about running away with Anatole. They got together after Bolkonsky’s death, being already mature people ready to honestly and steadfastly keep home from the temptations and evil of the surrounding world. One more fateful meeting is the meeting of Nikolai Rostov and Marya Bolkonskaya. And even if their joint happiness did not happen right away, however, thanks to the sincere, selfless love of both, these two loving hearts were able to overcome conventional barriers and build a happy family.
6. In love, a person’s character is learned: 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 irresistible 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, within themselves. Therefore, it is not surprising that they, connected spiritually, are faithful to their love no matter what. Sonya and Rodion accept the cross together and go to hard labor to heal their souls and start living again.
7. A. Kuprin’s story “Olesya” is another vivid example of pure, sublime love. The heroine lives in solitude, so in her feelings she is natural and spontaneous. The customs of village people are alien to her, commitment is alien to her. outdated traditions and deep-rooted 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, so she loves Ivan selflessly and sacrificially. However, faced with the superstitious anger and hatred of fanatical peasants, the heroine runs away with her mentor and does not want to drag her chosen one into an alliance with the “witch”, so as not to bring trouble on him. In her soul, she forever remains faithful to the hero, since in her worldview there are no barriers to love.
8. Love transforms the human heart, makes 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 ultimately change and improve each other, showing miracles of loyalty and courage. The love that arose between Pyotr Grinev and Masha Mironova turns a provincial teenager into a real man and a soldier, 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, ready to sacrifice personal happiness for the well-being of her loved one. A love story against the backdrop of significant historical events only enhances the contrast between external circumstances and the true affection 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 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 their time, full of medieval prejudices. Sincerely believing in the triumph of noble feelings, they challenge conventions, proving at the cost of their own lives that love can overcome any obstacles. To refuse feelings for them means to commit betrayal. Consciously choosing death, each of them puts loyalty above life. The readiness for self-sacrifice makes the heroes of the tragedy immortal symbols of ideal, but tragic love.
10. In the novel “Quiet Don” by M. A. Sholokhov, relationships and feelings characters allow the reader to appreciate the power of passion and devotion. The ambiguity of the circumstances in which the heroes find themselves is complicated by the interweaving of emotional connections that connect the characters in the novel and prevent them from achieving long-awaited happiness. The relationships between the characters prove that love and loyalty can come in many forms. 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 universal condemnation, and leaves her home, rejecting the opinion of the crowd. Quiet Natalya also loves faithfully, but hopelessly, tormented and tormented by unrequited feelings, while remaining faithful to Grigory, who does not ask her to do so. Natalya forgives her husband's indifference and his love for another woman.

Interesting? Save it on your wall!

The existing models of love in psychology differ sharply in one more, evaluative, parameter.

The models of the first group can include, for example, the theory of L. Kasler. He believes that there are three reasons that make one person fall in love with another. A person in love is extremely ambivalent towards the object of his love. He simultaneously experiences positive feelings towards him, for example, gratitude as a source of vital benefits (primarily psychological), and negative ones - he hates him as someone who has power over him and can stop the reinforcement at any time. Really free man, according to L. Kasler, this is a person who does not experience love.

The general logic of such a pessimistic view also corresponds to some empirical data indicating the conservatism of interpersonal attraction (its occurrence in accordance with the principle of similarity, etc.).

However, as has already been shown, in some situations attraction can play not only a conservative, but also a constructive role, helping to expand a person’s knowledge about the world. This suggests that the highest form of interpersonal attraction, love, can be described in a more optimistic spirit. An example is the theory of A. Maslow. The love of a mentally healthy person is characterized, according to A. Maslow, primarily by the relief of anxiety, a feeling of complete security and psychological comfort. It has nothing to do with the initial hostility between the sexes (Maslow generally considers this to be false). He built his model on empirical material - an analysis of the relationships of several dozen people selected according to the criterion of proximity to the level of self-actualization. The obvious and deliberate violation of representativeness is justified here by the fact that the author’s task was to describe not a statistical norm, but a norm of possibility.

Love in the description of A. Maslow differs sharply from those phenomena that other researchers observe, using the same name. Thus, from his point of view and according to his data, satisfaction with the psychological and sexual side of relationships among members of a couple does not decrease as usual over the years, but increases. In general, an increase in the length of time partners have known each other is associated with an increase in satisfaction. Partners experience a constant and growing interest in each other, interest in each other's affairs, etc. They know each other very well, in their relationship there are practically no elements of distortion of perception characteristic of romantic love. They manage to combine a sober assessment of another, awareness of his shortcomings with complete acceptance of him for who he is, which is the main factor providing psychological comfort. They often loved and found themselves in love at the time of the examination. They are not shy about their feelings, but at the same time they relatively rarely use the word love to describe relationships (apparently, this is due to high criteria in interpersonal relationships). Sexual relationships give A. Maslow's subjects very great satisfaction, and they are always associated with close emotional contact. In the absence of psychological intimacy, they do not enter into sexual relations. It is interesting that, although sex plays a big role in the relationships of the couples examined by A. Maslow, they easily experience frustration of sexual need. The relationships of these people are truly equal; they have no division into male and female roles, no double standards or other prejudices. They remain faithful to each other, which is manifested both in everyday life, for example, in the absence of adultery, and during periods of difficulties and illnesses. According to A. Maslow, the disease of one becomes the disease of both.

The situation described by A. Maslow can be an illustration of one important feature of love, which, ideally, should always be present in a love relationship. In fact, stable long-term love is always love despite the shortcomings, imperfections of the partner, as if in spite of them. Long-term and close communication does not give a person the opportunity not to see the negative qualities of a partner - according to ordinary logic, which deduces love and sympathy from the presence of extraordinary merits in the object, this makes love impossible. The ability to accept others, characteristic of mentally healthy people, allows them to maintain a feeling of love, despite the awareness of each other’s objective imperfections.

The problem formulated in the title of the article has always been relevant throughout the history of civilization, which is reflected in extensive literature (art, ethnographic, medical, etc.). In a philosophical vein, it is enough to refer to the anthologies: “Philosophy of Love”, “Peace and Eros”, “Russian Eros, or Philosophy of Love in Russia” to make sure that this problem is considered in all possible aspects.

European civilization turned out to be implicated in carnal eroticism, which deformed human relationships, including the relationship between a man and a woman. However, the public mentality contains hope for overcoming disharmony between the sexes. But this is possible only by realizing the holiness of love, marriage and family as universal values ​​of human existence.

The purpose of the article is the desire of the authors to emphasize the relevance of universals, such as love, marriage and family, in order to preserve them in human existence in the conditions of mass culture with its aggressive tendency to destroy high values. Let us take a closer look at these universals, in a positive aspect, in terms of harmonizing the relationship between a man and a woman.

1. Love as a manifestation of the generic essence of a person

Perhaps no one has so deeply and inspiredly expressed the value of love in words as the Apostle Paul in the First Epistle to the Corinthians: “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, then I am a ringing brass or a sounding cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries, and have all knowledge and all faith, so that I could move mountains, but do not have love, then I am nothing. And if I give away all my property and give my body to be burned, but do not have love, it does me no good. Love is patient, merciful, love does not envy, love is not arrogant, is not proud, is not rude, does not seek its own, is not irritated, does not think evil, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; covers all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ceases, although prophecies will cease, and tongues will be silent, and knowledge will be abolished... And now these three remain: faith, hope, love; but love is the greatest of them."

But what kind of love are we talking about here? - About love as a way of relating to the world, as a life principle that focuses on the unity of man with God, nature and other people. In such a broad understanding, love is the acquisition of spiritual experience, leading to self-restraint of the “flame of passions”, to curbing egoism. As the Russian thinker I.A. emphasized. Ilyin: “The first and deepest source of spiritual experience is love.” Considering the powerful wave of scientism, which reduces moral searches to utilitarianism, it is easy to see that love as a principle of attitude towards the world is simply ignored. Modern technogenic civilization, in essence, sweeps aside a simple and clear intention from the threshold: the world in which a person lives must be loved, and not disfigured. “Spiritual love,” notes I.A. in this regard. Ilyin, - there is, as it were, a certain hunger of the soul for the Divine, in whatever guise this Divine appears... The formula of this love is approximately this: “This object is good (maybe even perfect); he is actually good not only for me, but for everyone; he is good - objectively; he would have remained good or perfect even if I had not seen him, or recognized him, or recognized his qualities; I hear in him the presence of the Divine Principle - and therefore I cannot help but strive for it; to him is my love, my joy, my service...”

There is every reason to believe that famous physicist E. Fermi was not guided by a feeling of love for the world when, having seen the explosion of the first atomic bomb at a test site in the USA, he exclaimed, addressing his physicist colleagues: “You say that this is terrible, but I don’t understand why. I find this to be a wonderful physics experiment!” In this phrase, scientism manifests itself without any circumstance, without doubts about the correctness or incorrectness of what was done. After all, faith in the omnipotence of science has given humanity the ability to “move mountains.” And what?! The atom as a system is destroyed, but there is no love, because the devil is not capable of it. Good and evil are ontological. Kant had every right to say: “The world lies in evil,” but at the same time he protested against its multiplication. But love is also ontological, and cannot be reduced only to inter-human, and even more so inter-gender relations, for there must be love for God and for Nature. The ontology of good and evil is, ultimately, the activity of people aimed either at enriching spiritual experience or at destruction human beginning. The will to power over the world turns into the destruction of man. The principle of love for the world can manifest itself in the creativity only of positive values ​​that elevate the individual and society. Gender relations are no exception; otherwise, the reduction of love to sex is inevitable, which is tantamount to abandoning the principle of love, which does not exist without spirituality. It was precisely this understanding of love that Vladimir Solovyov insisted on in his work “The Meaning of Love.”

Love for a woman... It is inescapable, as are the illusions associated with it. The modern French playwright and Catholic thinker, representative of religious existentialism Gabriel Marcel, following the tradition coming from the Apostle Paul, also identifies three leading modes of human existence: faith, hope and love. Faith gives enthusiasm, but it can fade. Then hope comes into its own, but it can also be destroyed. The highest chord of human existence is love, because it contains everything: faith, hope, enthusiasm, sacrifice, etc. Marcel formulates the value of love for human life as follows: “To exist is to be loved.” In contrast to the Locke-Berkeley thesis: “To exist is to be perceived” (by the senses).

However, passionate desire, according to the laws of psychological compensation, can lead to the identification of the desire to love with love itself. After all, the first condition for deception is self-deception. L.N. On the eve of his wedding, Tolstoy wrote in his diary: “What if this is rather a desire to love, rather than love?” This phrase haunted him all his life. He never answered this question for himself, just as he did not choose faith, but still, on the threshold of oblivion, he decided to break with the world and fulfill his duty to himself. But, in fact, what difference does it make - an object or a quasi-object of lyrical admiration? The fact of the matter is that it takes place because the ideal image, worn inside from the desire to love, is superimposed on the empirical woman, which first gives rise to adoration, and later turns into disappointment. And farewell words from L.N. Tolstoy: “I love the truth... I really... love the truth” - perhaps this is the answer to his diary entry.

A man and a woman cannot help but love each other. But here two emotional dislocations lie in wait: either Platonism or Don Juanism. The cult of the Beautiful Lady arose in Europe during the era crusades, then it transformed to the veneration of the Inaccessible Virgin with its latest variety in the poetry of Russian symbolists - Sophia as “Eternal Femininity” (Vl. Solovyov) and the Beautiful Stranger (A. Blok). In Dante and Petrarch, love for the dead Beatrice and Laura acquired the most refined form of this great feeling. There is nowhere to go further; the ideal image is so collapsed that it loses all connection with a living object. The spiritual component of love is so hypertrophied that it completely displaces the physically real; This is no longer love for a living, concrete person, but specifically for a fictitious ideal - the image of a person.

The other extreme is the expulsion of the spiritual component from the feeling of love, i.e. lack of ideal at all. In Søren Kierkegaard the bearer of such love is called the “aesthetic man,” whose symbol is Don Juan. In the essay “Either - Or,” he examines options for the aesthetic romanticization of love and shows what paradoxes it leads to. Namely: the deity of light feeling unites with the demon of dark sensuality; eroticism, taken away from morality, turns into a pursuit of pleasure and leads to inner emptiness. If the subject professes Christianity, then eroticism is exacerbated by the awareness of the sinfulness of what is being done or thought.

An even deeper paradox of such love was revealed by another existential thinker - F.M. Dostoevsky. The latter affirms the hopelessness and tragedy of love in a man’s fate in general, if his own Sophia or Virgo is absent, i.e. when the ideal of Woman is rejected. Love in this case is only a way of self-affirmation for a godless person. Using the example of Stavrogin's fate, Dostoevsky shows how love, being a manifestation of self-will and voluptuousness, leads to death. Dark, passionate, celibate and illegitimate, in other words - negative, it splits the personality, without giving anything positive. Dostoevsky is not a singer of love. The theme of love for him is not valuable in itself, but is necessary only for understanding the tragic fate of man, for testing courage with freedom in the anthropology of the spirit. That's why he doesn't have a cult of Madonna. He, like a great anthropologist, subjects a person to a spiritual experiment - he sets him free, without doubting that it will turn into self-will. If for Dante man is an element of the divine cosmos (microcosm), for Shakespeare he is a hero in the plane of earthly humanism, then in Dostoevsky the underground depths of the human spirit are revealed, in which God and the devil, good and evil, beauty and ugliness are hidden. And love here is no exception, it contains all these hypostases, for what a person is, such is love.

In modern poetry, an excellent example of depicting such love is the collection of poems by B. Levit-Brown “Stanzas of Sinful Lyrics”. Dark sensuality clouds the consciousness, suppresses the volitional impulse, and the collection with a number of poems contained in it once again shows what terrible power a woman can have over a man, and above all with her physicality and focus on the objectivity of existence. There is an ancient maxim: “Iron is tested by fire, woman by gold, and man by woman.” Buddha complained that a woman in the person of a mother, sister, wife, daughter literally pursues a man and binds him to the world of everyday whirlwind, influences the instinct that enslaves human dignity. And many poets have walked this “path of hot slabs,” cursing everything in the world. Take, for example, Valery Bryusov and his poem of 1911 - “Yes, you can love by hating”... Will beauty save the world, as F.M. dreamed of it? Dostoevsky? Maybe, but not externally feminine, which fatally contains the will to power over a man, but love as a life principle, as a means of strengthening human solidarity, i.e. love according to Vl. Solovyov. After all, external charm can give way to disappointment, which often turns into cynical judgments of women and people in general. In this case, the cheerful, joyful, positive view of the world shifts towards melancholy and mental fatigue. This often happens, since “sinful love” does not elevate, but destroys the personality.

If we define the “color range” of the feeling of love, then it is often characterized by two polar “colors”: red and black, as is the case in the title of Stendhal’s famous novel. The semantics of color terms serves as one of the main aesthetic characteristics, because people have long associated a huge number of associations with color. In this case, a mood or feeling is associated with it. Red color is one of the most ancient symbols; in Rus', since ancient times, it has meant life, joy, holiday; With the adoption of Christianity, new meanings were added. Black symbolizes the completeness of any phenomenon. This is the color of the end, death, emptiness, grief and sorrow. The opposition “red - black”, characteristic of many cultures, entered the Eastern Christian tradition with a fairly stable meaning: “beginning - end”. So in the love of an “aesthetic person” the fireworks of joyful feelings are replaced by the opposite. Somerset Maugham, in his stories and novels, constantly proves that the love of a man for a woman and vice versa brings only misfortune, misfortune, disappointment, and even death. But no matter who and no matter how much they frighten people with this, the craving of a man and a woman for each other is inescapable. The question is different: how to get out of the tragedy, which is also inescapable, without destroying yourself as a person, without straying into vulgarity and cynicism. This is possible only on the paths to life-affirming guidelines, i.e. on the path to broader values, such as love for God, for Nature, for one’s neighbor, for the Motherland, for art, for self-development, etc., which inevitably spiritualize gender relations.

A person who has not experienced love is a failed person; he has not revealed his generic essence and has not shown his unique individuality. With all the failures of intimate-emotional life, one cannot doubt the ability of everyone, and especially women, to be the bearer of deep and sacrificial feelings. “Love,” Hegel wrote in his “Lectures on Aesthetics,” “is most beautiful in female characters, for in them devotion, self-denial reaches its highest point - it concentrates and deepens all spiritual and real life in this feeling, only in it does it find the support of its existence. And if misfortune befalls them, their love, then they melt, like a candle going out at the first breath.” One can only dream of such reciprocal love, but will every man appreciate it and respond to it? We shouldn’t forget about this either.

It is not unrequited love itself that is terrible, but the absence of love. As Yuri Rurikov, who published several books about the feeling of love, rightly notes: “The tragedy of unborn love is one of the most widespread human tragedies, and it is quite possible that the torment of untried love is much more terrible for the evolution of humanity than the torment of unrequited love. After all, a person who has not fallen in love is a person who has not risen to some of his highest levels, has not become a real person...” And further: “Because the ideal of a person, a real person, is homo amans - a loving person.”

2. The inevitability of marriage and its paradoxes

Marriage is a socially sanctioned form of relationship between the sexes. After the works of J. Bachofen “Mother Law” and L. Morgan “Ancient Society”, which appeared in the second half of the 19th century, it became clear how complex and diverse the forms of marriage relations are. The discoveries of these geniuses of ethnography are presented in an accessible form by F. Engels in his book “The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State,” which still remains a valuable source in this field, since these works of Bachofen and Morgan have not been republished for a long time.

Marriage is based on sexual instinct and sexual divergence, i.e. dividing people into men and women. Much has been written on this topic, but O. Weininger’s book “Gender and Character” remains unsurpassed in a number of aspects, which provides a detailed analysis of the problem of gender, the specifics of men and women, the vicissitudes of sexual desires, and especially in such chapters as: “The Laws of Sexual Attraction”, “Man and Woman”, “Male and Female Sexuality”, “Male and Female Psychology”, “Woman and Humanity”.

Of course, after Weininger a lot was written by many, but, unfortunately, the tradition set by S. Freud greatly confused the problem of marital relations and the nature of sexual desire, although a number of works by domestic and foreign authors deserve attention. V.V. wrote a lot on the issue of marriage and family. Rozanov, N.A. Berdyaev, E. Fromm, G. Marcuse, and Berdyaev and Fromm fundamentally rejected the Freudian concept of love and marriage.

Without denying the merits of Sigmund Freud as a scientist-psychologist who substantiated the method of psychoanalysis, we still have to state the negative nature of the ideological conclusions from this method. Freud, as a philosopher, humiliated man, created a caricature of him, taking the biologization of man to the extreme. Here are the three cornerstones of philosophical Freudianism: 1) in human behavior main role unconscious processes play, i.e. sexual instinct (Eros) and instinct of destruction (Thanatos); being in a state of binary opposition, they are unsuppressable; 2) unconscious instincts are opposite to consciousness, sociality, rationality, immoral and incompatible with culture; 3) unconscious processes are congenital, formed in childhood and subsequently the mental life of the individual almost does not develop.

Everything here is wrong. The unconscious is not reduced to a handful of instincts; a person is not their slave, much less an appendage to his own genitals; the unconscious is only a part of the psyche, therefore consciousness and the unconscious (instincts, unconditioned reflexes, motor reactions, emotions, intuition) only complement each other and create the conditions for normal mental activity. Freud, as a psychotherapist, actually observed facts of abnormal mental life, but from patients and neurotics he transferred his observations to man in general. The result of such extrapolation was a completely false concept of marriage and sexual desire, which he outlined in a number of works. For Freud, man by nature is an animal and nothing more, overcome by sexual desire.

What is the difference between marriage and love? Love is a feeling, i.e. the phenomenon is primarily spiritual and mental, while marriage belongs to the psychophysiological sphere. Therefore, marriage also takes place in the animal world, where there is sexual differentiation; love is only a human phenomenon. Hence, it is extremely erroneous to identify love with sex, with physiology, with sexual intercourse. Outside of culture, sociality, and feelings of love, sexual desire will not ennoble marital ties as a relationship between a man and a woman.

Due to the continuity of consciousness, love is not limited only to a given moment, act, experience, but is at the same time an exciting memory and a bright expectation, combined with the fantasy of lovers and the desire for personal happiness. Love is associated with morality, with an understanding of good and evil, with feelings of altruism and duty, with the desire to respect each other and preserve this friendship as a true benefit; up to self-giving, to selfless service. “I am convinced,” Frankl wrote, “that suffering, guilt and death - which I called the “tragic trinity of human existence” - in no way detract from the meaning of life, but, on the contrary, in principle can always be transformed into something positive. In the words of R.W. Emerson: “There is only one honor - the honor to help, there is only one power - the power to come to the rescue.”

Love creates beauty, sharpens the ability to perceive it, stimulates artistic creativity; beauty, in turn, ennobles marital relations. A marriage without goodness, beauty, rationality really gravitates towards naked sex, to simple animality, to physiological hunger - and this is its first paradox. Man overcomes the one-sidedness of sexual intercourse, because the means of regulation between the sexes is not only a system of prohibitions, but also feelings of shame and guilt, which animals do not have, since they are generated by culture and are the moral adornment of men and women. For Freud, it’s the other way around: sexual desire is not involved in creating the beauty of relationships; nature and culture are antagonists for him, and therefore there is an irremovable conflict between instinct and culture.

Why do people get married? - To have the opportunity to love each other freely, and not secretly; mutually satisfy emotional and sociocultural needs, but the main thing is to reproduce offspring. Marriage is the most optimal form for a man and a woman to live together and satisfy the need for procreation. But here another paradox of marriage stands in the way of achieving these goals. A person is inclined to turn sexual desire into an object of constant pleasure that does not serve the function of reproduction. Pleasure becomes an end in itself; a hedonistic attitude permeates the relationship between the sexes and inflation sets in in the relationship between a man and a woman. The institution of marriage is collapsing. This was the case in late antiquity, and the same is true now.

The pursuit of carnal pleasures kills not only marriage, but also love. After all, it is, in its very essence, a spiritual state that gives a person the right to physical intimacy. Marriage without love is also a paradox, generated either by naked calculation or blind passion. Not sanctified by the feeling of love, he is deprived of sincerity and loses moral dignity. Love is selfless, does not tolerate inequality and coercion, is inseparable from beauty, it needs physical and spiritual perfection, i.e. yearns for the ideal; it removes the antagonism of feeling and duty. Moreover, love is a special type of activity, because it does not put up with the imperfections of the world and strives to overcome selfishness, cruelty, deception, etc. - and therefore is synonymous with humanity. What remains of a marriage if there is no humanity in it?! - Only sex, lies and hypocrisy, and often violence.

Sex is a temptation for marriage and many cannot stand it, especially in the context of sex work. Having crossed reasonable boundaries, it destroys marriage ties and gives rise to evil. In all ancient teachings, the masculine principle symbolized activity, will, energy, and something giving. But in Tantrism - the ancient religious teaching of India - everything is the other way around: the creative, energetic, awakening principle of a man comes from a woman. Therefore, sex plays a huge role in Tantrism, for which special meditation, yoga and sacrifices are provided. Should we then be surprised that the Kama Sutra describes 729 love positions? There is nowhere to go further. It is no coincidence that in Tantrism the leading role in the pantheon of gods is played by the goddess Kali, who reveals herself through every woman. Kali is a symbol of fertilization, fusion, creation, but also at the same time destruction, evil, and the dark principle. Diseases, wars, murders are the inevitable results of its activities. According to Indian chronology, the modern era is precisely the Kali Yuga (era), i.e. the time of the reign of the black goddess. Tantra is a cult of sexual ecstasy, the other side of which is evil, destruction, death.

Until now, there has not been a society in which love reigned supreme and a genuine culture of feelings existed. In our cynical age, when the cult of sex has established itself, tantrism seems to have found a second wind. “Sexual revolution”, “free love”, “entertainment industry” - these are the signs of our days. The aggressive destruction of love is associated not only with the cult of materialism and consumerism, but with the debunking of the sanctity of marriage, the originality and intimacy of love. And it is not surprising that the practice of “sexual looseness” is theoretically justified in line with the school of Freudianism, which sees the suppression of human sexuality as a source of neuroticization of the population, sexual perversions, prostitution, etc. None other than the doctor and psychologist W. Reich - author of the books “Sexual Revolution” and “The Function of Orgasm” - advocated the emancipation of sexual promiscuity from the oppression of a supposedly repressive civilization. He saw the improvement of Western society in the rejection of patriarchy, the monogamous family, ascetic morality and sexual repression, in the emancipation of women, sexual instincts and “orgasmic vital energy.”

These ideas fell on the fertile soil of “mass society” and were reinforced in the work of Herbert Marcuse, who published the book “Eros and Civilization” in 1955. A philosophical study of Freud's teachings." Borrowing from Reich the idea of ​​the repressive nature of culture, Marcuse proclaimed the “Great Refusal” of all forms of oppression, from sexual repression and the patriarchal-monogamous family to the state repressive apparatus. The social revolution, in his opinion, is impossible without the sexual revolution, otherwise a “libid civilization” cannot arise in which creative Eros and the “principle of pleasure”, freedom and fantasy, love and beauty will dominate. His symbols of this new civilization are the images of ancient mythology - Orpheus and Narcissus, while Prometheus is a symbol of a repressive civilization. It is written beautifully, but there is one flaw in the Reich-Marcuse concept: it is incorrect, and subsequent practice has personally confirmed this. On the basis of consumer society and mass culture, their theories turned into vulgar hedonistic practice. In conditions of spiritual and moral deficiency, one could not expect anything else.

3. Family as the goal and result of marital relations. Love and family

A family is a community of people that arises on the basis of marriage and consanguinity. The statement that the family is the unit of society is inaccurate; this is a purely sociological approach. In the broadest sense of the word, the family is a socially sanctioned form in which the continuation of human race, raising children and caring for the elderly. Of course, the family also has social functions, but it is based on gender relations and population reproduction, i.e. relations between parents and children. It is not simple social community(a unit of society), because gender relations and the reproductive function go beyond the boundaries of society and are rooted in nature. The importance of the family in the history of mankind lies in the fact that in it and, above all, through it, the sexual life of people, the reproduction of generations and the primary socialization of individuals occur. No other organization or community can take on these specific functions of the family, and it is they that determine the necessity of the family for society. The moral basis of the family is feelings of love and duty; if this is not the case, the family is held back only by economic and legal bonds.

Love does not tolerate inequality; she is the embodiment of freedom, fantasy and altruism. A family cannot exist without rights, responsibilities, and obligations. The family is as necessary as the state. For for the self-preservation of the human race it was necessary to develop norms and restrictions for the natural orgy and chaos of sexual desire as a natural phenomenon. Curbing natural instinct came at a high price and will always be felt. After all, the mystery of sexual attraction is an absolute mystery, and it is incomprehensible to society and cannot be tolerated by any social taboos. Therefore, the sexual life of mankind has never been contained in any form of family and has always spilled over the boundaries established by society. Types of family that have been so fluid throughout human history (monogamy, polygamy, polyandry, Hawaiian family, Levitine marriage, etc.) have always faced the problem of adultery, divorce, violence and inequality, mutual hypocrisy, selfish calculation and vile betrayal. The notorious triangle stubbornly followed, for example, on the heels of a monogamous family. George Sand was one of the first to even try to draw a model of a positive triangle, especially in the novel Jacques. Not everyone, apparently, has forgotten the happy triangle from the novel by N.G. Chernyshevsky “What to do?” The novels of George Sand greatly influenced him and the relationship between Vera Pavlovna, Lopukhov and Kirsanov is built in accordance with the concept of family and marriage of the French writer. In addition, Chernyshevsky was a Fourierist, and Fourier, in principle, was against the institution of the family. But you can’t help but see positive points in the legacy of Fourier - George Sand and Chernyshevsky: they were against the oppression of one sex by the other and defended the human right to freedom of choice - for love.

Humanity can be likened to a bird whose two wings are two genders. It's clear that it can't be free flight, if one wing is crushed by the other. The place of the “Great Mother” (in Crete - Hecate, in Phrygia - Cybele, in Greece - Gaia, etc.) was taken by the “Great Father”, i.e. male god: in Egypt - Amon, in India - Vishnu, in Phenicia - Baal, in Greece - Zeus, in Rome - Jupiter, etc., and evil spirits often began to bear female names. Zeus gives birth to Athena from his head. This shift towards the male gender is shown very clearly in Aeschylus’s trilogy “Oresteia”. Clytemnestra kills her husband Agamemnon upon his return from Troy to Argos. Agamemnon's son Orestes kills his mother for this. Erinyes - the goddess of blood feud - pursue Orestes, but he finds refuge in the temple of Apollo, and then in the temple of Pallas Athena, in which the trial of Orestes takes place, with Athena presiding over the trial. And what is the ending? The Erinyes defend Clytemnestra, Apollo defends Orestes, Athena justifies him (she didn’t have a mother!). The Erinyes suffered a complete defeat at the trial. Men's right has won, including the man's right to polygamy, to divorce, to adultery, to turn his wife into a slave. Sooner or later this was bound to cause a wave of feminism, but the main thing was to lead to a crisis in the institution of the monogamous family.

In the twentieth century, the situation in family life became the object of careful and at the same time sad reflections of many outstanding thinkers. N.A. has a lot on this topic. Berdyaev. “... The family,” he wrote, “is connected with social everyday life and is subject to its laws. Family often cools love. But it would be a mistake to think that there is no depth in the family, and to easily deny any spiritual meaning. This meaning is not only that in our everyday world love is invested in the form of a family. This meaning, first of all, is that the family is the mutual bearing of hardships and a school of sacrifice. Its seriousness lies in the fact that it is a communication of souls before the suffering and horrors of life. She is dual, like almost everything in the fallen world. It not only eases the suffering and hardships of life, but also creates new, incalculable suffering and hardships. It not only spiritually liberates a person, but also spiritually enslaves him and createstragic conflicts with a person’s calling and with his spiritual life.... The eternal tragedy of the family is that a man and a woman represent different worlds, and their goals never coincide. This is a tragic beginning in love, which is deeper and more primary than the family and crystallizes in the family. In the family, everything becomes denser and heavier, and the tragedy itself becomes commonplace.”

Breaking the chain: love - marriage - family has become a constant theme in the work of Erich Fromm, especially in his book “The Art of Loving.” The replacement of love with sex, the internal harmony of human relationships with calculation and commerce, and market relations turns, in his opinion, the individual into an automatic consumer. Fromm states the alienation of people from themselves, from other people and from nature and considers this the greatest threat to civilization: “We want to convince the reader that all his attempts to love will remain in vain until he directs all his efforts to the development of his personality in all its integrity in order to develop a mindset for productive activity; that it is impossible to be satisfied in loving one person if you are not able to love your neighbor at all, if you do not have real modesty, courage, faith and discipline. In cultures where such qualities are rare, the ability to love is also rare. Ask yourself: how many truly loving people do you know?” . And further: “... To love means to accept obligations without demanding guarantees, to surrender completely to the hope that your love will give birth to love in your loved one. Love is an act of faith, and whoever believes weakly loves weakly. ... The ability to love requires energy, a state of wakefulness, high vitality, which can only arise as a result of a fruitful and active orientation of the personality in many other areas of life. If a person is not a fruitful person in other areas, he will not be fruitful in love."

Fromm pays a lot of attention to ensuring that people stop identifying love with sexual attraction. Low-grade songs, consumer films and all sorts of “shows” within the framework of the “porn business” impose a model of market relations in this extremely intimate sphere of human existence. Just as in the market, they strive to attract attention not so much by consumer qualities, but primarily by external packaging, so in family and marriage relations, purely external signs often come first: money, profession, social role, physicality, etc. And despite the fact that in a society of mass consumption everyone is burning with a passionate desire to love, all the energy is spent on achieving socially and materially significant values ​​such as success, wealth, power, and not on mastering the art of love. In addition, almost the entire mass culture, it would seem, is saturated with “information about love,” but there is no true understanding of love; surrogates of love are imposed on a person. In his book “The Art of Loving” Fromm gives a description of brotherly, maternal, erotic love, love for oneself, for God, love between parents and children. He sharply protests against the fashionable understanding of love, the source of which is a sudden surge of feeling, emotional spontaneity, unbridled passion that excludes responsibility, spiritual and moral kinship and mutual understanding between partners. Or calculation, benefit, i.e. market relations - or unbridled, animal passion; Here are two wretched views of love.

Fromm writes: “If the entire structure of our society and our economy is based on the fact that everyone seeks benefit for himself, if its guiding principle is egocentrism, softened only ethical principle justice, then how can a person do business, live and act within the existing social order and at the same time truly love? ... I am convinced that the recognition of the absolute incompatibility of love and “normal” life is fair only in an abstract sense. The principle on which capitalist society is based and the principle of love are incompatible. … If a person is capable of love, he must take his supreme place. He should not serve the economic machine, but it should serve him. He must be endowed with the ability to share experience and labor rather than, at best, profit. Society must be structured so that the social, “loving” essence of a person is inseparable from his life in society and forms one whole with it. If it is true that love, as I have tried to show, is the only healthy and adequate solution to the problem of human existence, then any society that in one way or another limits the development of love will inevitably, sooner or later, perish, coming into conflict with the basic needs of human nature.”

In the book “To Have or to Be?” Fromm exposes the desire of people to own love and each other in marriage, as they own things. After all, “the marriage contract,” he notes, “gives each party the exclusive right to own the body, feelings and attention of the partner. Now there is no longer any need to conquer anyone... to make efforts to be attractive and to arouse love, so both begin to bore each other, and as a result, their beauty disappears... Now, instead of loving each other, they are content with joint possession of what they have: money, social status, home, children." Love cannot be “had”; love cannot be forced. Failure to understand this leads to mutual accusations of dislike and the search for a new partner. This is how bad infinity arises. “All this,” Fromm emphasizes, “does not mean that marriage cannot be the best solution for two people who love each other. The whole difficulty lies not in the marriage, but in the own essence of both partners and, ultimately, of the whole society." It is perhaps worth paying more attention to these words. So-called opinion polls only record the reasons family conflicts from the words of the respondents, which means they don’t explain anything, because main reason- lack of self-development and aggressive egocentrism - are absent from the answers. The psychology of the owner, if it exists, manifests itself everywhere - guarding, jealous, supervising, but property can have nothing in common with the psychology of fidelity in love and marriage.

In general, according to Fromm, in a society of mass consumption there are the following reasons for the destruction of love and family and marriage relations:

• market orientation in human relations, giving rise to soulless rationality, emotional inferiority and moral degradation in individuals;
• the possessive psychology of people who are accustomed to “having” and not “being”;
• the dominance of material values ​​over spiritual and moral values;
• easy attitude towards deep issues human existence;
• low level of self-realization and spiritual culture of the individual.

Having made such an uncompromising diagnosis of the society and individual of Western civilization, Fromm, like Marcuse, puts forward the task of forming a “new man,” the solution of which requires the “humanization” of people and their relationships, and this requires a “rebirth of love.” All this sounds unusually relevant “here and now”, since Ukrainian society has taken the path of market relations and market ambitions have begun to permeate all pores of society.

Fromm is also relevant because he goes against the grain on issues of love, marriage and family. As already noted, starting from the 60s of the twentieth century, the idea of ​​the identity of love and sex has been persistently introduced and is now being introduced in the West with the help of “sex business”. Fromm warns against reducing love to sex and sharply criticizes Freud for biologizing human feelings. In the book “The Art of Loving,” he highlights the specifics of sexual love, calling it erotic, and at the same time emphasizes that love gives birth to sex, and not vice versa. Freud completely missed the spiritual component of love. Sex without love, so widespread in the West, Fromm states, does not provide true happiness, joy, or truly human pleasure. He cites the well-known expression: “After intercourse, an animal is sad,” considering it correct, because physical proximity does not eliminate alienation between people. “Loneliness together” is the worst kind of loneliness. “Joy in the sexual sphere,” notes Fromm, “is possible only when physical intimacy is at the same time spiritual intimacy, i.e. love." Love is not a thing, not a property, or even a goddess to be worshiped. “In reality there is only an act of love. Loving is a form of productive activity. It involves the manifestation of interest and care, knowledge, emotional response, expression of feelings, pleasure... It excites and enhances the feeling of the fullness of life. This is a process of self-renewal and self-enrichment." Fromm constantly distances himself from “false love”, i.e., as he puts it, love on the basis of “possession”, when the individual becomes isolated on himself, on the satisfaction of his egoistic interests. True love removes selfishness, forgets about itself, strives to overcome consumer orientation, and opens up to people. “He who truly loves a person,” Fromm notes, “loves the whole world.” How close this is to the Russian literary and philosophical tradition, to the views of Solovyov, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Berdyaev, Ilyin, Vysheslavtsev... Fromm’s discussions about love are in the spirit of high European tradition, coming from Plato and the Apostle Paul and poeticizing the spiritual side of love. There are few such “singers of love” in the West, because in addition to reducing love to sex and physiology, in the twentieth century a pessimistic, negativistic perception of love took hold in the literary and philosophical sphere of the West. Perhaps only Gabriel Marcel can be put on a par with Erich Fromm. For Marcel, love is also the heart of the human world, which has stopped beating in modern world. Marcel also dreams of saving humanity in the “continuum of love” and considers the progress of love to be the criterion for the progress of society. But Fromm not only opposes nihilists and cynics, but at the same time avoids the abstract approach to love, family and marriage, which is the case with Marcel, and tries to teach people the art of love; here he has many subtle comments and practical advice.

Unfortunately, another position is stronger, especially expressed in Sartre, and in literature in Somerset Maugham, which perceives love not in a positive aspect, not as creative universal value, and emphasizing the destructive consequences of love or its perverted forms - masochism, sadism, or even the transformation of love into its antipode - hatred. In postmodern culture, it is the negative perception of love that has become dominant. Love is flawed and ambivalent. The gaze of postmodern literature and philosophy is magically focused on the underside of love, on its curse. Everywhere it brings doubts, uncertainty, eternal fear, guilt, resentment, jealousy and revenge, steals freedom, deceives, sows illusions and disappointment. All this is already present in Sartre’s work “Being and Nothingness,” and later, among neo-Freudians and postmodernists, it turns into a genuine “demonology of love.” The question is, what kind of marriage and what kind of family can be built firmly on the basis of such denigration of a bright human feeling?!

conclusions. The crisis of family and marriage relations in non-classical and post-non-classical culture is perhaps reaching its climax. Sociologists give a lot of facts about divorce, about single-parent families, about the growth of bachelors and unmarried people, about the number of illegitimate children, etc. All this is true, but something else is also true. Marriage and family have been and will be the organizing principle in public and personal life. Despite all their disadvantages, they will preserve themselves, but on one condition, if Homo sapiens not completely turn into Homo erotikus. This is the only way humanity can protect itself from spiritual degradation and preserve love as a factor of human solidarity.

Literature

1. See Philosophy of love. In 2 volumes / Comp. A.A. Ivin - M.: Politizdat, 1990; Peace and Eros. Anthology of philosophical texts about love / Comp. R.G. Podolny. - M.: Politizdat, 1991. - 335 p.; Russian Eros, or Philosophy of Love in Russia / Comp. V.P. Shestakov. - M.: Progress, 1991. - 448 p.

2. Bible / Russian Bible Society. - Rebake. with ed. Moscow Patriarchate. - M.: Russian Bible Society, 1997. - 1376 p.

3. Ilyin, I.A. The path to obviousness / I.A. Ilyin. - M.: Republic, 1993. - 431 p.

4. Levit-Brown, B. Stanzas of sinful lyrics / Boris Levit-Brown. - St. Petersburg. : Aletheia, 1999. - 62 p.

5. Hegel, G.W.F. Aesthetics. In 4 vols. T.2 / G.V.F. Hegel. - M.: Art, 1969. - 326 p.

6. Rurikov, Yu.B. Three drives. Love, its yesterday, today and tomorrow / Yu.B. Rurik. - Minsk: Universitetskoe, 1986. - 271 p.

7. Weininger, O. Gender and character / Otto Weininger - M.: Terra, 1992. - 480 p.

8. See Vasilev K. Love / Kirill Vasilev. - M.: Progress, 1982. - 214 p.; Kon I.S. Introduction to sexology / I.S. Con. - M.: Medicine, 1988. - 319 p.; Rurikov Yu.B. Honey and poison of love (Family and love at the break of time) / Yu.B. Rurik. - M.: Young Guard, 1990. - 446 pp.; Vislotskaya M. The Art of Love: Trans. from Polish / M. Vislotskaya. - M.: Physical culture and sport, 1990. - 256 p.; Badioni, A. Love: from awakening to harmony / Attila Badioni; Translation from Hungarian. M. D. Popova. - M.: Progress, 1992. - 334 p. and etc.

9. See the classic textbook on psychoanalysis: Kutter P. Modern psychoanalysis. Introduction to the psychology of the unconscious / P. Kutter. - St. Petersburg: B.S.K., 1997. - 343 p.

10. See, for example: Freud Z. Essays on the psychology of sexuality / Z. Freud. - Minsk: Potpouri, 1998. - 480 p.

11. Frankl, F. Man in Search of Meaning: Collection / F. Frankl; Per. from English and German D. A. Leontyeva and others - M.: Progress, 1990. - 368 p.

12. Berdyaev, N.A. On the appointment of a person / Berdyaev N.A. - M.: Republic, 1993. - 382 p.

13. Fromm, E. The human soul / E. Fromm. - M.: Republic, 1992. - 430 p.

14. Fromm E. To have or to be? / Erich Fromm. - M.: Progress, 1986. - 238 p.

________________________________________
Shatalovich Alexander Mimkhailovich, Shubin Vasily Ivanovich

Another aspect of relationships involving large age differences are marriages in which the husband is much younger than the wife. It is a widely known fact that experienced mature women often become mistresses of young men who begin sexual relationships. I will cite one of the letters published in Speed-info.

"I am 22 years old. I'm happy with life. But one “but”! I'm not at all interested in girls my age. On the contrary, they are attracted to more mature women, 35–45 years old. As soon as you see a pretty woman of this age on the street, an erection occurs. And fantasies fill your head. But not just ordinary fantasies, but a desire to rape this woman. At any age, I have always been attracted to women older than me. At school - to the teachers. And I never fell in love with someone my age. But the problem is that when I fall in love with women 35–45 years old, I don’t date 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: you’re a brat, the milk on your lips hasn’t dried, etc. Therefore, you have to relax with people your own age, but during sexual intercourse I think, fantasize that it’s the right woman nearby, i.e. 35–45 years old, otherwise nothing will not work".

The specialist’s comments on this letter say that the young man’s experiences are normal and do not contain any pathology. And the main fear is the fear of being rejected. Not believing that the desired woman can voluntarily accept him as a sexual partner, in his fantasies he takes possession of her by force. 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. They are either shy or do not consider themselves attractive to young men. Or, finally, they are afraid of encountering 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 that age he considered his mother not only 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 someone the same age? This option is possible. But she will most likely be intellectually and experience-wise older than her passport age.

If such relationships develop into family relationships, 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 very sophisticated lover who is ideal for a mature woman. Especially if she has strong character, confident in herself and has achieved something in life (it doesn’t matter whether on her own or with the help of her ex-husbands). Then there is no need to shift the burden of responsibility for material and everyday problems, raising children onto the fragile shoulders of the young husband. As one lady said, 8 years older than her husband, “when my husband is young, then I am young.” And it's not just about sexual relationships. Such a marriage constantly keeps a woman in good shape, forces her to take care of her figure, face, and 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 distinguished by a certain immaturity, a beautiful and somewhat feminine appearance and claim to be a kind of “darling of fate,” since when 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 there can be among such families - after all, even people are not the same, and marriages even more so. In the list of people who joined such unequal marriages, there are Isadora Duncan and Sergei Yesenin (18 years difference), Gala and Salvador Dali (10 years), Edith Piaf and Theo Sarapo (20 years), Liza Minnelli and Scott Baio (16 years). Or take at least the most legendary couple of our stage: Alla Pugacheva and Philip Kirkorov. How many spears were broken by journalists and idle ordinary people around them, how many versions of their union were proposed, and in spite of everyone they lived long enough in their marriage - longer than other ordinary couples. So, if love has arisen between people and they are psychologically suitable for each other, you should not strictly focus on the usual stereotypes. Fate gives out its lottery tickets to people in a very whimsical 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: often partners, for one reason or another, do not want or cannot have children, and this form of family is very “convenient” for implementing a “childless program.” When a MK correspondent asked if the widow of the poet Levitansky now wanted to find a husband younger than her, she replied that she considered 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. An older man can have a child with a younger woman. Playing with a different goal does not work.

However, it is difficult to squeeze real life into any 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 childish, 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 the household responsibilities, earned money, and, in general, behaved like an experienced, caring and responsible “father of the family,” while at the same time 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 praised uncontrollably, or their role in this very Great October Revolution was completely denied (as was the case with Trotsky and Bukharin), or their biographies were taught as the lives of saints, or they were easily erased from textbooks. Thus, today’s schoolchildren no longer know the once legendary figure of the Russian revolution, A. M. Kollontai, who not only was the world’s first female ambassador, but also made a significant contribution to the Russian sexual revolution.

In December 1917, A. M. Kollontai met with P. E. Dybenko in the turbulent 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 passionately interested in each other. “Our relationship,” Kollontai recalled years later, “has always been overflowing joy; our partings were full of torment and heart-breaking emotions. It was this power of feeling 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 they love us.”

A. Kollontai and P. Dybenko

A shadow of the past

Memory of the past kills hopes for the future.

(V. Bruskov)

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

At the same time, the spouses, like ancient Greek heroes, find themselves between Scylla and Charybdis: to talk honestly about all past connections means to awaken jealousy and kill in a partner such a soul-warming feeling of one’s exclusivity, and if you hide it, then where is the guarantee that the old connection will not emerge at the most inopportune moment, causing an effect exploding bomb. And yet, the truth about a loved one’s past sexual relationships 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 severe “poisoning” of mutual love, and even its 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 show off, talks about his affair that happened in the recent past.

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

The gazebo suddenly seemed to be hidden around the bend. Vera Lvovna was silent, and Pokromtsev, carried away by his memories, continued:

Well, of course, they played at love, you can’t live without it at the dacha. Everyone played, starting with the old prince and ending with the beardless lyceum students, my students. And everyone patronized each other, turned a blind eye.

And you? Did you also... look after someone? - Vera Lvovna asked in an unnaturally calm tone.

He ran his hand over his mustache. This smug gesture, so familiar to Vera Lvovna, suddenly seemed vulgar to her.

Nah... me too. I got it little novel with Princess Kat, a very funny novel and, perhaps, if you like, even a little immoral. You see: the girl is not even sixteen years old, but her swagger, self-confidence, etc. are simply amazing. She expressed her views to me directly. “I’m bored here, he says, because I can’t live a single day without realizing that everyone around me is in love with me. You're the only one here I like. You are not bad-looking, you can talk to you, and so on. You, of course, understand that I cannot be your wife, but why don’t we spend this summer fun and pleasant?”

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

This voice made Pokromtsev wary. As if apologizing for hurting her, he pulled his wife's head towards him and touched her temple with his lips. But some vile, uncontrollable attraction swarming in his soul, some vague and disgusting feeling, similar to boastful youth, pulled him to talk further.

So we played at love with this lad and broke up at the end of the summer. She thanked me completely indifferently for helping her not to get bored, and regretted that she had not met me after she had already gotten married. However, she, according to her, did not lose hope of meeting me later.

And he added with a fake laugh:

In general, this story is one of the most unpleasant memories for me. Isn’t it true, Verochka, that all this is 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 kissed his wife on the cheek again...

Vera Lvovna did not resist, but did not respond to the kiss... A strange, painful and unclear feeling 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 known that every man has affairs and relationships before marriage, that what is a huge event for women is a simple case for a man, and that one must inevitably put up with this terrible order of things. There was also indignation at the humiliating and depraved role that befell her husband in this novel, but Vera Lvovna remembered that her kisses with him, when they were still the bride and groom, were not always of an innocent and pure nature. The most terrible thing about this new feeling was the consciousness that Vladimir Ivanovich had suddenly become a stranger, a distant man to his wife, and that their former closeness could never return.

“Why did he tell me all this nasty stuff? - she thought painfully, squeezing and tormenting her cold hands. - He turned my whole soul upside down and filled it with dirt, but what can I tell him about this? How will I know what he was experiencing during his story? Regret about the past? Bad anxiety? Disgust? (No, in any case, not disgusting: his tone was smug, although he tried to hide it...) The hope of meeting this Kat again someday? And why not? If I ask him about this, he, of course, will hasten to reassure me, but how to penetrate into the very depths of his soul, into the most distant bends of his consciousness? How can I know that, speaking to me sincerely and truthfully, he at the same time does not deceive - and, perhaps, completely unwittingly - his conscience? ABOUT! What would I give for the opportunity to live at least for one moment his inner life, alien to me, to eavesdrop on all the shades of his thoughts, to spy on what is happening in this heart ... "

Vera Lvovna felt terrified and sad. For the first time in her life, she came across today the terrible consciousness that sooner or later comes to 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 man with whom I eat, drink, and sleep, and with whom I must 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 recites poetry, I know even more - I know his kind words, I know how he kisses, I know five or six his habits... Well, what else? What more do I know about him? Do I know what imprint his former hobbies left on his heart and mind? Can I guess from him those moments when a person internally suffers while laughing or when external, hypocritical sadness covers up gloating? How to understand all these subtle twists of someone else's thoughts, this monstrous whirlwind of feelings and desires that constantly, quickly and elusively rushes through the soul of a stranger?

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

Dynamics of Marriage Relationships

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. Guberman)

The beginning of a journey together

The only thing better than a honeymoon is the first month after a divorce.

I found the shortest and most succinct description of the evolution of relationships in marriage in Eric Berne. He wrote: “Marriage means six weeks of excitement and a world record in sex. Five more weeks to get to know each other, time for fences, rushing and running back, finding each other's weaknesses, and then the games begin. After six months, everyone makes a decision. The honeymoon is over, marriage or divorce begins - until next 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 understand the loss of freshness of perception, as a result of which the vision of the sexual partner loses the pristine freshness and brightness observed in the initial period of the relationship. As the French poet Edmond Rostand said, “living with the person you love is as difficult as loving the person you live with.” After all, when love just flares up, all a person’s feelings towards his loved one acquire special sharpness and multicoloredness. He can spend hours admiring the face of his beloved, listen to her voice endlessly, study her body with delight, etc. But then the first months and then years of marriage pass. The wife’s face is already known to the smallest detail, her voice is depressing with its predictability, her body has been studied inside and out. Sensations fade, become “gray” and “one-color.” There is a purely physiological explanation for this. In the human central nervous system there is a special part of the brain - the thalamus, which filters all signals entering consciousness, allowing only new or particularly important information to pass into the cerebral cortex. It's like clothes that we feel only when we put them on, but then we stop feeling, or new curtains in the house that we first pay attention to, but after a few days we stop noticing. Approximately the same thing happens with the spouse, who over the years becomes only 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 duty to love, for, as Helen Rowland wrote, “marriage is the miracle of transforming a kiss from pleasure into duty.” The very phrase “marital duty” already makes you sad 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 are dooming yourself to long-term insomnia. If you should be grateful to someone for good deed towards you, you risk hating him. Our subconscious is very stubborn, it can sometimes be deceived, but it is almost impossible to force it to do something. And emotions, including love, are exclusively under his control. Therefore, attempts to make you love your spouse just because he has the corresponding entry in his passport are doomed to failure.

I. Anchukov “The age of freedom cannot be seen...”

The third reason why love can gradually melt away is that at home we look unvarnished, the way we really are. If you photograph 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! In addition, this is not a stone thrown into a woman’s garden, it’s just that this example is more indicative among the “fair sex.”) But the point is not even that cosmetics, but in the roles we play in society and at home. There is a seducer in every man (big or small, talented or untalented - it doesn’t matter), just as there is a seductress in every woman. This fact does not require moral assessments - it is and will be so, because it is determined by the genetic program, activated at the subconscious level. This program requires you to cast your charms and vibes on any person of the opposite sex who has not yet been conquered.

Thus, outside the home, men and women instinctively strive to produce 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 within their own walls), and appear before their wife or husband in a rather unattractive background, especially compared to other people. Worn sports trousers with blisters at the knees, a wrinkled old shirt and worn-out slippers for the husband and an old dressing gown for the wife or her nightgown two sizes too big are completely different from the evening suit of the groom or the French lingerie of the bride during their premarital relationship. 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 sexual desires. On this occasion, I recall the statement of Emil Krotky: “Take care of his own wife it seemed to him as absurd 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 a desire and its satisfaction, the stronger the emotional experience, the more powerful the release. If the desire is satisfied immediately after it arises, then the pleasure from sex is minimal. Normally, a free woman does not give herself up at the first request of a man, but being married, she is, as it were, obliged to do this. Women feel the absurdity of such a situation especially acutely, as exemplified by Anita Ekberg’s aphorism: “You can’t understand men: before they get married, they behave as if everything is allowed to them; after the wedding - as if they were not allowed anything.”

Henri Cadiou. Lost illusions

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

The sixth reason for the death of love is quarrels due to mismatched lifestyles. As strange as it may seem at first glance, arguments over the order of washing dishes or attitudes towards pets can destroy the feeling that seemed huge and unshakable to the newlyweds. In this case, slogans like “If you love me, then you must...” are often used (you can insert something from your experience here, ranging from “take out the bucket” to “buy a mink coat”). But listen, gentlemen, the concepts of “love” and “should” cannot be put side by side in the same sentence, it’s like measuring butterflies in kilograms and time in meters. For real loving person does something for a loved one not because he has to do it, but because he wants to. He does not need to be forced or blackmailed to do this; it is a joy for him to please his loved one. 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. This category of reasons that destroy a marriage also includes unfulfilled hopes. “I got married because I didn’t want to cook breakfast in the morning, and I got divorced because I didn’t want to cook two breakfasts,” wrote Alexander Kulich.

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

Family life began: washing, cleaning, ironing and marital duties.

(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 some role. This only happens when he is left completely alone - it doesn’t matter where: in a deep forest or in his own house. If there are people nearby, then the person automatically, most often unconsciously, tries on one of his many roles: “husband”, “father”, “work colleague”, “lover”, “stamp collector”, “dental 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 fair “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 reception room; talking with a pretty fellow passenger in a train carriage, he happily plays the role of a charming, laid-back and slightly frivolous “Playboy”, etc.

“The whole world is a stage, and the people in it are actors,” - this brilliant phrase of Shakespeare has more meaning than is commonly believed, for not only does a person play this or that role, but over time the role begins to be played by a person, 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 encounters resistance from her husband, who plays the role of “Master of 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, clothing and, most importantly, the energy of communication . Putting on the role 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.

To prevent relationships from becoming covered in a web of dull habits, spouses should change behavioral patterns more often, especially in their sex life. You should periodically change the ways of having sex and the roles of partners in bed (not only according to the position occupied - “who is on top” and “who is below”, but also according to the functions performed in the love game. If the husband was usually active, then let him then the wife will take this function, and vice versa). You can change the time you have sex and the place where it happens. You can change along the way home clothes, its styles, styles, etc. A woman can change her hair color, and a man can grow a mustache or beard (or both at the same time). More frequent visits (or invitations) to guests, concerts, discos, expanding your social circle, etc. give good results.

The problem of addiction, which has a detrimental effect on family sex, is very acute throughout the world. Spouses, as a rule, do not share their concerns with others and, as best they can, try to find a way out of the situation. Psychologists and sexologists help them with this, for example Dagmar O’Connor, who wrote the 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 statements from 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 spirit: “He doesn’t excite me anymore. 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, it is solely to maintain the “weekly rhythm” and not to argue with their spouse. These people rarely have sex for pleasure. However, you should not equate sex with food or drink, this makes it unattractive. People who turn sex into a purely genital act consider caresses and tenderness only a means to bring their partner to a certain state, after which their need is satisfied.

I devote at least 15 minutes to sexual play, and never jump into it without preparation, Jack told me.

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

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

The first time we arrived at the motel in the evening, the manager looked at us very suspiciously and without approval. We tried our best to hold back our laughter and spent half the evening laughing in our room and then making 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 simply amazing time.

After these vacations, Terry and Borden also had better “at-home” sex; it became more intense and varied.

“A little prank can make a big difference,” says Dagmar O’Connor. - Some couples don’t 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 bedbugs. And one day we came across an old-style inn that turned our trip into a secret love affair, and we felt like characters in a novel.”

Spontaneity

Spontaneity is the most important principle of sex. If any person rummages through his memory, he will probably find that the most recent and vivid impressions of sexual relations with a familiar partner he received in the case of unplanned sexual intercourse, performed under the influence of a powerful and rapid desire. If this flame of passion, which has engulfed one partner, spreads to the second, then the sensations from such spontaneous sex can be extremely strong, no matter where it occurs - in the bedroom, in the kitchen or in the toilet stall of the conservatory after listening to Tchaikovsky's First Concerto (among readers' letters after the publication of the first edition of this book happened!).

The problem is that most often a sudden desire seizes one person, while the other at this moment may be completely unprepared for intercourse and, moreover, takes 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 women’s lips.

You are using me!

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

Are you crazy? My mother is in the next room! You can't wait until evening. Let's go to bed - and then, humanly, like all people...

I don’t want to throw stones only at women’s gardens, so I fully admit that the remarks may 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 my daughter should return from school! What will we do then?

Accusations of selfishness and sexual use of one spouse by another are very often present in family relationships. As a result, spouses develop a not very positive attitude towards their sudden sexual desires and a wary and fearful attitude towards the possible reactions of the other 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 would like to remind you once again about the fundamental postulate of Sigmund Freud’s theory: suppressed 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 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 openly tell each other about your desires, even secret ones, which, at first glance, seem indecent or shameful, than to bury them within yourself, at the same time digging a grave for future sexual relationships in marriage.

How can we cultivate openness and spontaneity in our marital relationships without being accused of selfishness and exploitation? Dagmar O'Connor calls this method "Contractual Selfishness" and describes it in the above-mentioned book.

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

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

“We always do about the same thing,” Rick said, “we just can’t do the same things now that we used to.”

Maybe the time has come to try something different, I suggested. - Your sexual tastes change, just as tastes in food, literature and everything else change. Have you ever confided in each other your deepest sexual fantasies? What would you like to experience? What kind of caresses do you prefer?

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

It seems to me that when you start explaining something, 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 in another way.” In the past, Rick always knew exactly what I needed without me having to ask him.

What if he can’t read your thoughts now? - I asked with a smile. -You still won't tell him anything? You believe that if he truly loved you, he would guess your desires, right? Too many people fail because of this common myth.”

When there is special spiritual closeness between spouses, another myth arises: “We are so similar,” the spouses say, “that I am sure that what I like, my half also likes.” These romantic myths are very harmful and absurd in nature. Then why are they so popular?

Lovers. From an engraving by the Japanese artist Sushmura. XVII century

It's all about a 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 sin in sex. Expressing what you want, without complexes and excuses, only means that we want to enjoy the joys of sex as much as possible. Meanwhile, selfish sex by mutual agreement is the best way for both to enjoy it. In bed, two selfish creatures achieve what everyone wants. Therefore, spouses must agree to satisfy each other, and in the way that the other suggests. This “agreement” is very serious and difficult for many to enter into, but if you turn it into a game or a fun exercise of your abilities, it can radically change the way a couple approaches sex. You just need to agree with each other that within two weeks everyone, without hesitation, asks for what they want. If sexual desire arises in one spouse, you should not wait until the second spouse “guesses his thoughts” and is ready to fulfill his request. You need to explain clearly and unambiguously, without unnecessary modesty, what you want. For the duration of the agreement, you should give each other permission to ask for anything at any time, even to wake you up at two in the morning or to do “this,” at first glance, in an unusual environment. 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. To ensure 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 permissibility of refusal by one of the partners if the desire of the second spouse seems completely impossible to him at this stage of development of their relationship. Let the second person have the right to say: “I’m not ready for this fantasy yet,” but this should be a refusal in the form of “not yet,” and not “no, never.”

During this game, psychologists advise giving up the feeling of guilt for “exploiting” your partner, because with this form of sexual communication, the roles of the spouses periodically change - today one shows generosity and generosity, tomorrow the other. Sometimes the second partner immediately accepts the sexual desires of the first, and then new forms of sex by mutual consent are quickly introduced into the general repertoire, and sometimes it takes a lot of time for the other spouse to abandon the usual stereotypes and want the same thing. 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 party, at least they will be realized at least occasionally during the validity of such “agreements”, which means that such thoughts will not be suppressed and go into the subconscious, threatening family well-being from there.

Keep yourself in shape, don’t let yourself get 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 she constantly needs to be conquered (or other men will do it for him). Of course, it is not necessary to wear a tuxedo and evening dress at home, and a woman’s face should take a break from makeup during the evening, but, on the one hand, you can always choose quite beautiful and fresh clothes for home use, and on the other hand, who is stopping the spouses at least On weekends, have festive and even slightly formal dinners, or at least put on something smart?

But clothes are just an outer shell, a skin that peels off every evening, or even more often. What's underneath is even more important. Unfortunately, we have lost much of our love and respect for human body, which was inherent in the ancient Greeks. They knew how, on the one hand, to groom and caress him with aromatic oils, massage and rubbing, and on the other hand, to train, educate and harden him. In ancient times, 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 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 influence of the state of our body on sexual life in marriage. Why do many spouses stop experiencing sexual arousal at the sight of their better halves? One of the common reasons for this is the physical condition of their bodies: flabby, flabby, and suffering from excessive obesity. 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 my wonderful soul to be loved, and the physical shell is secondary.” With such words, people justify their laziness and weakness of 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 as well.

It’s better to save on alcohol or an extra dress and buy a gym membership or shaping course. If the financial situation is absolutely critical, there are still morning exercises, jogging, a bicycle, home dumbbells and a horizontal bar in the yard.

You have to win a partner

A wife should not give herself to her husband at his first request. If she wants to be appreciated, for her husband to experience a full-fledged bright orgasm, she must show considerable ingenuity and coquetry in order to “inflame” her husband and bring the strength of his desire to such a level when he would passionately want her, but at the same time not he felt that he was simply being “dumped” and would not 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 give spouses new and vibrant sensations forgotten in the routine of marital duties.

Accept a person as he is

Sometimes it happens that, looking up from the TV, in which the film “Basic Instinct” or “Pretty Woman” is playing, the husband stumbles upon his wife wiping dust from the dressing table, and, quickly comparing her with Sharon Stone or Julia Roberts, thinks: “Yes... there are women in their villages... Look what they do in bed. And the external data is an 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 there is a different picture. On March 8th, all women are given gifts at work. And so, receiving flowers and chocolate from a handsome colleague who is generous with compliments, someone’s wife thinks: “Well, someone got a guy: he’s handsome, and gallant, and not boring. And mine is a bear-bear. He'll pour some borscht in the evening and won't even say thank you. And now I’ll have to suffer with him all my life.”

What can you say to this? Of course, there are about three billion women and about the same number of men living on Earth. And perhaps, somewhere in Louisiana, Stockholm or Uryupinsk, your ideal half is waiting impatiently 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 single your whole life, you still have to make a choice, and preferably not at the age of seventy. Therefore, if you are already married, then, most likely, your spouse at one time had quite certain advantages - otherwise you would not have chosen him. And to be sad because it does not contain all the virtues of the world is, to say the least, stupid. Going this way can only poison family life, nothing more. Better 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 together to determine how you would like to see each other? What qualities should be accepted as they are (height, nose shape, eye color, etc.). What qualities can, in principle, be changed if one of the partners wants it, and the other doesn’t mind acquiring new features (pump up muscles, lose five extra kilograms of weight, dye your hair black, get 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 capable of changing in the desired direction, it is better not to torment him needlessly. If his normal weight is 80 kg, and he feels great, then it’s 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 him along the way, and you will 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’s better to exclaim enthusiastically: “I can imagine how elegant you will look if you lose a little here, at the waist. You'll look a lot like a young Sean O'Connery. And if you can, straighten your shoulders a little, dear. Right now you’re great.”

Connect play and imagination

Fantasy in sex is not necessarily a way to replace a boring partner in your imagination with another - an invented one. In fact, you may well have a rainbow of fantasies about your sex life with your spouse. Without fiction and imagination, sex becomes prosaic over time; in the end, it is fantasies that distinguish us from animals, for only a person can turn ordinary intercourse into an amazing performance. Best performances in this area, these are joint fantasies that shatter all norms. For example, spouses may play the role of lovers during their intimate encounters 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 this is enough to give me goosebumps.

Another couple played the same game at home:

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

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

When we finish making love, I always tell my husband to leave the money on the dresser. 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 put aside the "good girl" complexes that were preventing her from enjoying sex. The fantasy worked, and as a result, both spouses received a new quality of sex.

Return to earlier periods of the relationship

Before having sex, don't try to take off all your clothes at once. Play seduction. Remember your early experiences with each other, when you slowly undressed each other, anticipating the delicious pleasure of long-awaited sex. Usually, when going to bed, spouses “incidentally” intend to have sex and undress for this. Boring! But once upon a time it seemed so tempting and electrifying to us to stroke a breast through a sweater or rub our buttocks clad in jeans against each other, run our hand under a blouse or stroke a swollen fly, and even in a place where it is completely indecent to have sex! After all, it promised so much ahead! Why do we now avoid wonderful touches? Is it really necessary to start and end everything so urgently? The more games there are in sex, the longer the path to what is expected, the better the coitus will be. First of all, because during a long game more blood will flow to the genitals, therefore, the deeper the subsequent relaxation will be. After all, having sex in clothes means playing seduction, and this is so pleasant and so exciting. Try playing this game with your spouse - seduce by undressing. Women especially miss the magnetic excitement that occurs when the buttons on a blouse are undone one after another, the zipper on a skirt comes down - and all this with constant stroking and caressing.

Understand and give in

At the very beginning of the conflict, when anger or irritation has not yet gripped 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 of this is required: just to give in in an argument. Remember that you yourself periodically change your point of view - and nothing bad happens. Why do you deny the right to have your point of view to another, and the person closest to you?

Think about the 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 co-worker of your wife (an employee working in the same office as your husband). How could you start 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 and win his sympathy. Use your imagination and ingenuity, and you will see a lot of new details in a seemingly long-known person. A slight amount of jealousy (unfounded), which may arise at the thought of how your wife (husband) may be viewed, will not hurt, but will only invigorate and tone up a slightly withered relationship.

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

Pay attention to how others interact with your spouse: how they feel his attractiveness, how they take his arm, laugh at his jokes. Imagine that you need to “picture” him (her) and start flirting. And save all these feelings until you come home...

Tact and patience

In the relationship between spouses in marriage, patience and the desire to restore a shaken relationship are very important. If a wife notices that her husband has reduced sexual activity, she should under no circumstances blame him for incipient impotence or immediately take a lover (if, 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 a man’s reduced sexual activity: 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 to?” or “Can’t?”).

If “can’t,” then, paradoxically, this is a more desirable option for the wife. The main thing is that he wants his wife. The rest will follow. Illness, spring vitamin deficiency, overwork, problems at work, even a word spoken in the heat of the moment by the wife - all this can cause a temporary decrease in potency. The most important thing for the wife is not to focus on this, to be affectionate and patient. Show that a gentle look and a gentle touch are enough for her (even if this is not entirely true). This unpleasant event can become a reason for a mutual search for new forms of sexual games and experiments, which will only enrich married life after the problem disappears. Under no circumstances should a wife throw phrases at her husband like: “What else can you expect at your age?” or “Well, if you can’t do it the way a man should do it, 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 restoration of potency and encourage her husband in every way. Anything can be used: massage, lace lingerie, erotic videos, a gentle whisper in the ear before bed and much more. A woman should not offer sex, but even slightly shy away from it, tease the man, saying that “the doctor has temporarily forbidden them to do this” until potency is completely restored. Believe me, nothing increases this potency more than prohibitions!

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

If the husband doesn’t exactly want his wife, and when he sees a pretty butt on the TV screen his tights begin to move, then the situation here is more serious. The worst option for a wife is if the husband is in love. It is clear that he is not into her, and blinded by the sudden outbreak of passion, he does not want to have any sexual relations with his former “half”. Here the forecast may be the most unfavorable, and victory, even if it goes to the legal spouse, may go to her at great cost.

A more common version of a man’s gradual cooling towards his own wife is based on the loss of this wife’s former athletic and erotic form: curlers on her head, a torn robe on her body and holey slippers on her feet. If you add to this a saggy belly, a hunched back and a lack of makeup, then you can at least partially understand a man who, with a sad sigh, watches his neighbor working as a secretary in a luxurious office. What should the wife do in this case? Out with the curlers, replace the greasy robe or at least wash it and shorten it to a “mini” format, buy shoes for the house. Remove the belly with the help of shaping, straighten the shoulders, light up the eyes, and put on makeup on the lips. And don’t forget about the hypnosis of French lingerie and a drop of good perfume before bed.

Marriage is the only union from which one can only leave by dissolving the entire organization.

(Wladislaw Grzeszyk)

Recently, attitudes towards the institution of marriage have undergone certain changes. It began to be perceived by some sociologists and psychologists not as a mutually beneficial union, in which each of its members strives to provide the second spouse with the most optimal conditions of existence, but as a forced union of two beings striving, first of all, to satisfy their purely selfish goals and forced to resort to to certain compromises. This view also finds support among ethologists - scientists who study animal behavior. On this occasion, Richard Dawkins wrote in his book “The Selfish Gene”: “... Thus, each of the partners can be viewed as an individual who seeks to exploit the other, trying to force him to make a greater contribution to the cultivation of offspring. Ideally, each individual would “like” (I do not mean that he would experience physical pleasure in doing so, although this is possible) to copulate with as many members of the opposite sex as possible, in each case leaving the rearing of children to his partner.”

This view of sexual partnership as a relationship characterized by mutual mistrust and mutual exploitation is especially emphasized by Trivers. For ethologists, this view is relatively new. We are accustomed to viewing sexual behavior, copulation and the courtship ceremonies that precede it as a kind of essentially joint activity undertaken in the name of mutual benefit and even for the benefit of the species!

From this 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, the positive impact of divorce on the institution of marriage should not be overlooked.

Divorce can be the gravedigger of a family union, and then the person who survives it decides never to marry again, or it can become the beginning of a new family, stronger and happier than the one that existed before. Only one of the spouses may want a divorce, and then for the other it is perceived as a tragedy, or maybe both - and then the divorce will become for both a long-awaited liberation from unnecessary legal shackles, as was the case with Woody Allen, who told reporters: “We were thinking about what to do: go to Bahamas or get a divorce. But, in the end, they decided that the Bahamas is only a pleasure for two weeks, and a good divorce lasts a lifetime.”

Therefore, depending on the specific circumstances, divorce can be both good and bad. Joseph Collins said: “Divorce is not the enemy of marriage, but its ally,” believing that it is the possibility of “early” termination of a marriage that makes the latter more durable, because it deprives it of the elements of doom and lifelongness. Adrian Decourcel shared the same point of view, arguing that “divorce is a safety valve in the marital cauldron.”

On the other hand, there is another opinion: divorces, they say, weaken marriage and push people to have a frivolous attitude towards it. This view is primarily characteristic of cultures with a strong influence of the church (Italy), as well as with 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 with a focus on material values ​​(USA), difficulties in the path of divorce are associated with a very complex and expensive procedure for dividing property. However, even practical Americans understand that it is better to spend tens of thousands of dollars on lawyers than to live with a psychologically incompatible person. All that remains is to treat the situation with a bit of humor, as did the American millionaire Tommy Manville, who was divorced thirteen times. Once, after another divorce case, 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 only two, and sometimes three, can bear them.

(Alexandre Dumas son)

When, at the beginning of the 20th century, Wilheim Reich, one might say, for the first time seriously began to study family relationships on a mass scale, he was surprised to discover that not only men, but also women, in their dreams and fantasies, were happy to paint pictures of adultery. In the book “Sexual Revolution” W. Reich wrote: “There is not a single woman who does not have so-called “fantasies on the topic of prostitution.” This should not be understood in the literal sense. Few women see themselves in their fantasies as prostitutes. We are almost always talking about the desire to have sexual intercourse with several men, without limiting your sexual experience to one partner. It is clear that such a desire is associated with the idea of ​​prostitution. The data obtained from clinical character analysis completely destroys the belief in the monogamous predisposition of women." 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 relations.

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 enter into a new marriage every 25 days. A temporary marriage can last even one hour. According to custom, when a Persian goes on a trip or expedition, he 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 villages. Villagers willingly give their daughters or sisters to rich people for this kind of connections, which bring a lot of income to both them and the mullah intermediaries. Even in brothels The Imam of Persia, every evening, marries his clients with the ladies of their choice according to the ritual and writes a contract in which the mandatory remuneration is established.”

If you think that such “fleeting” marriages are a thing of the distant past, then you are slightly mistaken. I will not talk about the great Elizabeth Taylor, who married almost every time she liked a man - her eight marriages are described in detail by reporters. There are cooler stories in life, for example, the 28 marriages of American Scotty Wolf. His stunning story was described in Speed ​​Info several years ago. The last wedding Mr. Wolf celebrated his 85th birthday. His last wife Also from the breed of record holders, she was married 22 times. According to Scotty Wolf, 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 people. His wife No. 27 was 14 years old when they were 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 knows well how to please a man, the bride is confident that their marriage will be stable. But why did she choose Scotty Wolf? What can an 85-year-old pensioner give her? Attention, warmth, tenderness - this is firstly, and secondly financial security (even despite the fact that Scotty regularly pays alimony to all his 19 offspring from different wives, he is a wealthy man). And Scotty himself believes that, quite possibly, this marriage of his may not last forever. Marriage, he says, is an experiment, a journey into the unknown, which he intends to continue until his last breath.

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

Among the “non-standard” forms of marriage that exist in our time, we can name polygamy, which officially exists in Muslim countries, the so-called “Swedish family”, in which several couples live peacefully sexually, 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 “triple” 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 give up his bachelor habits. Elegantly dressed, with carefully styled hair, he wandered around fashionable living rooms, restaurants and actors' restrooms, making friends with hussars, actresses and “ladies of the demimonde.” As a result, A. Ya Panaeva began to feel increasingly lonely and abandoned. Nekrasov began visiting her house in 1845 and almost immediately was fascinated by the graceful, dark-skinned hostess, who, in addition to her attractive appearance, also had excellent literary taste. Nekrasov soon admitted his feelings for Panaeva, but she continued to be faithful to her frivolous husband and did not make reciprocal steps towards the poet.

A year later, N.A. Nekrasov takes an unprecedented step at that time: he settles in the same apartment with the Panaev couple, and there, on Liteiny Prospekt, the rapprochement between the poet and Avdotya Yakovlevna begins, which ended with them 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 Panayeva. She wrote:

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

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

The union of N. A. Nekrasov and A. Ya. Panaeva, which went through love and hatred, coldness and violence 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 created together, creating several novels. In his poems, Nekrasov called Avdotya Yakovlevna his “second muse,” which was highest sign confessions of the poet. Nevertheless, their life together was by no means strewn with roses: the great Russian poet was partial to female beauty, and sometimes this led to family quarrels. One day he got seriously carried away French actress Selina Lefren, who was distinguished not so much by her beauty as by her lively disposition, brilliant outfits and good musical abilities. Nekrasov communicated with Selina more than once both in St. Petersburg and abroad, and much later she wrote to the poet from Paris: “Don’t forget that I am all yours. And if it ever happens that I can be useful to you in Paris... don’t forget that I will be very, very happy.” In another letter, Selina Lefren wrote: “I understand here how empty everything is around, and that it is necessary to have a true friend in the world.” Apparently, they were connected not only by friendship, for Nekrasov remembered the actress all his life and in his posthumous will assigned her ten and a half thousand rubles, which at that time was a very impressive sum.

Naturally, Avdotya Panayeva 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 reached us, in which the great Russian poet admits his guilt and asks to forgive him:

Sorry! Don't remember the days of the fall,
Melancholy, despondency, embitterment, -
Don't remember the storms, don't remember the tears,
Don't remember the jealousy of threats!

But the days when love shone
It rose tenderly above us
And cheerfully we made our way -
Bless and don't forget!

Celibacy as a way of life

And the Lord God said: It is not good for 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 this is!

(John Barrymore)

To begin with, here is an excerpt from Alexander Meshkov’s comic story “If you are thinking of getting married”: “Current times make us think about the appropriateness of marriage relations and the institution of marriage in general. It should be remembered that the wife will have to be fed. It costs from 500 to 1000 US dollars to feed an average-sized adult woman. Add the cost of clothes and tights, medical service. Some women also need to have their hair cut and dyed. In addition, you will have to pay with your time and sacrifice many amenities. You need to walk your wife several days a week, you will have to change the warm comfort of a lonely bed, but many wives toss and turn and snore while sleeping.

Do you need to go on a business trip? And how many jokes and life situations begin with the words “My husband is returning from a business trip”?! You will have to carefully monitor your wife’s health, otherwise she may become pregnant, and this will be an additional expense. In addition, wives constantly steal money from their husbands - sometimes entire salaries.

There is an opinion that blondes are dumber and difficult to train. You should take a wife who is both big and charming. But keep in mind that brunettes are more sociable and mobile, and this threatens the possibility of adultery. Big, big women eat a lot. Balance your financial capabilities. Moreover, big wives fight. However, this also happens: they take a small wife, and she grows into a large, portly woman. Less often it happens the other way around. Sometimes, after marriage, some husbands become stressed because their wives do not participate in beauty pageants and do not become supermodels. In this case, you should take your wife directly from the exhibition. However, this will come at a cost. This is only available to business people..."

Now do 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 at the age of 25–29 years old increased by 14%, and 30–39 years old - by 45%. The famous sexologist I. S. Kon explains this phenomenon for various reasons. In his major work “Introduction to Sexology” he writes: “Some people do not marry because they are not psychologically or physiologically adapted to it. Others simply avoid the responsibilities of marriage, preferring to satisfy their sexual needs in casual relationships (this was more difficult in the past). Still others (there are quite a lot of them) are actually married, but do not register it. These types are socially and psychologically different, but their prevalence is a rather serious symptom. It should be added that the motivations for avoiding sexual relations between men and women in some respects differ quite greatly. Therefore, it makes sense to separately examine “hardened bachelors” and “old maids.”

Confirmed bachelors

You must always be in love. This is why you should never get married.

(Oscar Wilde)

People who do not marry and remain single for the rest of their lives can be divided into two groups: those who “want to, but cannot” and those who “can, but do not want.” The first group includes persons with physical and mental defects who have “gave up on themselves” and decided (in most cases unreasonably) that there is unlikely to be 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 plenty of examples of how strong-willed people overcame their physical disabilities and found wonderful life partners. Among the “textbook” ones we can recall the Hero of the Soviet Union, pilot Alexei Maresyev, and among 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 many more representatives of the second group (“can, but does not want”), as well as the reasons why various men stubbornly avoid the bonds of Hymen.

Firstly, these are people with complex characters who experience 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 spread their unsuccessful experience to other women, believing that subsequent marriages will not be better.

Secondly, “confirmed bachelors” include the so-called “ mama's boys", for whom the image of a mother is capable of completely crowding out any other woman from the soul. Oddly enough, this happens in two opposite scenarios: if the mother of the future bachelor is a domineering woman, overly protective of her beloved child, who cannot find an “ideal wife” for her over-aged son, or the son himself idolizes his mother and cannot find a bride, similar to her.

Thirdly, opponents of marriage include people with low sex drive who do not feel a craving for frequent sexual contact and therefore do not see the need to get married. In addition, they often have an interesting job or hobby with which they fill their leisure time, which also reduces the need to communicate with people of the opposite sex.

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

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

Single life has both pros and cons. On the one hand, a bachelor does not have to support his wife and children; he can spend more money on himself. He should not “get used to” another person, adjust his life and habits to the woman living nearby. He can change sexual partners as often as he likes, without worrying about conspiracy or jealousy. He is unfamiliar with the concept of “marital duty”; he owes no one and makes love solely of his own free will. On the other hand, at times he experiences a feeling of painful loneliness, he is deprived of a family atmosphere, he feels some social rejection from others. Due to promiscuity, single men have a higher risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases; According to statistics, they live several years less than married people. So the price for freedom is quite high - years of life. But, again, the most inveterate bachelors claim that, firstly, their lives are much brighter and richer in events than those of “married” people, and secondly, life after seventy is not particularly attractive to them, because what is a life without sex? ?

In general, there are plenty of arguments for and against marriage; the only correct solution to this problem, as ancient as the world, has not yet been found. “Get married in any case,” advised the wisest Socrates. “If you marry successfully, you will be an exception; if you are unlucky, 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 this relationship as follows:

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

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

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

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 nasty 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 go to Poland to marry Hanska.

The biographer writes that this decision to go greatly worried him. “Once Balzac got into the carriage, he almost stayed there forever.” With each city, approaching the goal of the journey, Balzac felt worse and worse.

He began to feel suffocated to such an extent that further travel seemed unnecessary.

He arrived in Poland almost a ruin.

The servants supported him by the arms as he entered Ganskaya's room.

He muttered: “My poor Anna, it seems that I will die before I give you my name.” However, this condition 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 sitting in a chair. He died soon after, at the age of fifty. He was a man of enormous physical strength and enormous temperament. But that didn’t save him from defeat.”

Old maids

If there is anything sadder in the world than a lonely woman, it would be a woman who claims that she likes it.

(Stanley Shapiro)

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

Defects in education

Very often, the formation of the psychological attitude of the “old maid” begins in the very early childhood. This often happens if a woman whose husband left her is raising her only daughter, and the man’s departure from the family occurred 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 a mother does not hide her negative attitude towards her father from her child, and expresses her negative emotions in a generalized and harsh form (“all men are scoundrels...”, “your dad was a decent brute, however, the rest are no better...”, “they you need one, and then look for their fistulas - only the trace has disappeared...", "daughter, for God's sake, be more careful in communicating with men, otherwise you will end up, like me, on the beans..."). When a girl is protected from the sexual side of life from childhood, raised to fear men and distrust them, then over time she develops a fear of members of the opposite sex, a misunderstanding of male psychology, and an unwillingness to have anything in common with them. The prognosis becomes especially difficult if the mother, of course, with the best of intentions, protects her daughter from contact with boys, does not allow her to go out with peers, to discos, or into nature. The greatest Chinese of the 20th century, Mao Tse-Tung said: “To learn to swim, you must swim!” In order to learn how to successfully communicate with members of the opposite sex, there is no other way other than communication. Of course, it is desirable if there is friendly advice and help from the mother, tactful advice and adequate reactions to inevitable mistakes and failures. Only in this case the daughter will not repeat the sad experience of her 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 father figure (especially if he is kind, affectionate and handsome) grows to epic proportions and the girl develops an “Electra complex”. For her, her father becomes the best man, next to whom the rest of the stronger sex pales. The situation can be complicated if the father also experiences 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 his beloved daughters). Another thing is that these subconscious motivations are suppressed by the Super-Ego and pushed out of consciousness, however, in the case of an incomplete family, the father often experiences jealousy towards his daughter’s men, and the girl herself loves her father more than her fans. In order to untie this tangle of biological and social attachments and provide his daughter with a happy family life, it is advisable for the father to be aware of the real relationships in the family and show tact and wisdom.

Another factor that can complicate a girl’s life 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 stupid 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 from 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 diluting the classics more with modern literature. And then - classical literature is also different. For sex 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 may include a number of psychological qualities, and primarily low self-esteem. It is undesirable for a woman to have an overly critical attitude towards her appearance, or to try to look for and find defects in her appearance.

The second personality trait that makes intimate contacts with men difficult is a “masculine” type of behavior combined with a low assessment of men. The desire for independence, the desire to control a man, to 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 maintain one’s independence at any cost (especially among active women engaged in “free” professions: lawyer, artist, journalist). Often, such women have a conscious desire to get married, but various “fatal” circumstances prevent them from doing so. In fact, these are jokes of their subconscious, which does not want to lose the freedom that is so dear to them. They may “lose” their passport on the eve of the wedding, go on a spree before an important conversation with the groom, or, as if by chance, bring their husband together with their candidate best friend, and then hotly accuse both of them of betrayal. In public, such women (as a rule, relaxed and excellent-looking) loudly complain about the fate that prevents them from arranging their personal life, but after another breakup with a candidate for the role of a husband, they sigh to themselves with relief.

Wrong behavior strategies

This, in particular, includes the inability to use cosmetics and clothing to shape one’s 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 and create the image of an attractive and sexy woman. But their trouble is that, thanks to defects in their upbringing, their assessment of “sexy woman” is extremely negative. They want to please men, but are embarrassed to be attractive, considering coquetry a low means, and quite sincerely believe that a man should love them solely for their high “spiritual qualities,” although they clearly explain what this is and why their spiritual qualities should be highly valued can not.

This category also includes straightforwardness in behavior and a clear demonstration of one’s desire to get married (which scares men away); inflated demands on men and a quick cessation of contacts when one’s ideals do not coincide with a real person; persistent reluctance to engage in premarital sex.

On the other hand, the opposite tactic - readiness 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 advantages, such women strive to win over the man they like, easily entering into an intimate relationship with him. But such behavior sharply reduces the value of a given woman in men’s eyes, since her partner thinks: “If she went to bed with me on the first evening, then she can easily do it with any other man.” As a result, such a “super-available” woman falls into the category of “cheap”, and there is no talk of any marriage anymore.

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 your life relatively happily, you need to: a) love yourself, realize your worth and uniqueness; b) constantly improve, be an interesting person, take care of your body; c) do not hesitate to present yourself in in the best possible way, helping yourself with this with the help of clothes and cosmetics; d) communicate more often with representatives of the opposite sex and remember that the experience of live communication cannot be replaced by 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 all good things in life fly by very quickly.

The only alternative can be celibacy, but we will talk about this form of protest at the end of the chapter.

By the way, the name of the venerable scientist’s young friend was Lola, almost according to Nabokov.

Almost like her parents!

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