Research Analysis Paper

What did love represent to people in the 19th century? Can you really call it love? As we know now love was not something people in Russia experienced. The marriage was a step into connections between people. In The Kreutzer Sonata, the theme of what loves means and how each gender should behave or act in the relationship is embellished into a conflict between the old and the new. As humans start to evolve and gain better knowledge of us, the definition of love is always in constant evolution. In antiquity they never loved but married out of convenience but in the modernity, people now love because they feel the is connection between each other, and marriage is step further into their relationship.

Women in the 19th century had to submit to their husbands completely and men could use force if the women had derailed from the expectation’s men had. Patriarchal relationships were the only type of relationships they knew. “I’ve been married for six years and my husband treats me very cruelly.” … “Returning home every night to our apartment, he finds fault with me for trifles and beats me cruelly, for which the two attached medical certificates serve as evidence. I’ve turned to the local police several times to get him to stop, and each time he swore he’d stop beating me, but within two or three days he’d break his vow and begin again and more recently, he’s threatened to kill me” (Barbara Alpern Engel 101). Men could behave this way because of societal expectations imposed on them. Their way of thinking was later influenced, however women regardless of how they felt the men was also superior. These laws made marriage hard, some people did however try to have a good relationship with their partner, “… I became aware that my father wanted to marry me off as soon as possible,” … Feeling neither love nor sympathy for him, I hoped that both would develop as we lived together.” … “Even if they did not love each other like they would have wished the lady ins scenario wished to at least get along” (Barbara Alpern Engel 48). If a woman wishes they would get along in this period they knew that whatever the laws say they must obey and if the laws, it was ok for a man to use force on a woman then their wish would be to not have any conflict between each other. In the 19th century woman had no say. The laws that were created for marriage were all against the women, if women confessed their love to someone its unmarriageable, if a woman kisses a man its unmarriable. The laws were there to help the man be in total power. Marriage was not love, was not sacred, even though their relationship said it was. Love became this unknown thing for people marrying into these relationships only to further their connections and truly only based on business. At the end of the day, love for them was not an option, but neither was marriage.

Having someone by your side, your partner, is someone to love and care for. If that love is not reciprocated, then what is the use, some people nowadays think this way. Someone would not love a relationship where you are in distress, the anxiety you have when coming back home “Fear of what?” asked the lady. “Why, this: let her fear her husband! That fear!” “Oh, the time for that, sir, has passed,” said the lady with a certain viciousness’’ (Tolstoy 161–162). This ideology has been carried from centuries where men are in control of the women and the women should do as they say. People who have been raised with this ideology still believe that this is the way to love. Many women felt the obligation to do what their husband said, they would get mistreated if they didn’t. Not only the wife, but also their child, will be mistreated. If they were to warn someone about the mistreatment, they would be branded a liar. This will cause the socio-economic status of the wife to decline.

In novel, the discussion going between the lady and the old men is a clear example of how between this period where there was a clash between the different opinions on how one’s romantic relationship should go. They never loved but married out of convenience in ancient times. From the novel the old man from the train describes how, according to the Russian government, marriage is expected to work out. According to the Triangular Theory of Love, a love theory founded by Robert Sternberg, one relationship is not just romantic love, as one would imagine. The Triangular Theory of Love consists of commitment, passion, and intimacy. The love that the old man mentioned was empty love, where only commitment is present (Lectures). In the partnership, the women had no say, which then contributed to double standards. Men were granted their sexual desires in the relationship, but women were viewed as chaste and good, and their desires were not fulfilled. A love where only men are happy, a love where women are set aside, makes women feel miserable, not cherished. “What is wrong with education?” said the lady, with a scarcely perceptible smile. “Surely it can’t be better to marry as they used to in the old days when the bride and bridegroom did not even see one another before the wedding,” she continued … “Without knowing whether they loved, or whether they could love, they married just anybody, and were wretched all their lives. And you think that was better?” she said, evidently addressing me and the lawyer chiefly and least of all the old man with whom she was talking” (Tolstoy 160). The tradesman’s attitude was that trained women are a threat to society because they know better and can share their views, making men less strong than they do. The misnoid philosophy emerged as the government introduced these marriage rules. The marriage is mostly arranged by the parents and the socio-economic aim of the marriage is to support the family.

In modernity, this philosophy has shifted, because while certain people might still believe this way, in the 21st century people also say that when they are together, they must feel a special bond. This is because they feel loved, “Furthermore, love itself is mostly understood as a physical and natural felling, as a ‘merging’ with another, our half, as a means to attain goodness, or a supernatural, mythical feeling” (Renata Grossi 108-109). Now that people have been shaped by the media and the outside world, the perspective on love is fresh. Sharing this bond with someone else is fundamental to one’s relationships. The lady on the train spoke of the superior love that everybody wished to attain. From the triangular love theory, this love will be a total combination between all three components called consummate love. “At the same time, in the late eighteenth century, there was an increasing acceptance in the middle class of marriage based on individual choice. A marriage of mutual attraction and affection was commonly known as the “love-match,” to distinguish it from the pragmatic exchange of women’s attractiveness and domestic labor for the man’s economic provision and social power that was the usual configuration of matrimony” (Susan Ostrov Weisser, 37). As described before the patriarchal relationship constrained women’s ability to express themselves. Marriage is correlated to love, although nowadays it will become a step forward toward their relationship, but that was not the case in the 19th century. The passion that they would genuinely feel because they had the freedom to select their significant other was making divorce more acceptable between unhappy marriages.

In many children’s movies throughout the 21st century, there were true love scenes that made many children believe that their true love would also happen to them. That’s what prompted them to believe in fantasy. “Traditional narratives are threaded into our experience; fictions become real to us as we try to live with and through them, while “reality” becomes fictionalized. Just as our culture’s fictions are often the undercurrent of our reality, so we view those fictions through the lens of our experiences and the choices they present” (Susan Ostrov Weisser 183). This fantasy was taken into their opinions, thinking that their relationship would be great. In the past, many people did not realize what love was and they had no good understanding about what love was all about. So, the people of this century, now possessing a vibrant imagination fantasizing about marriage, made it easier to expect what they would get in a relationship.

However according to Greek mythology, a theory as to why these marriages did not succeed was that they were not soulmates. In ancient Greek, there is a tale of how soulmates originally came to be, according to Greek mythology, living creatures were initially created with four arms, four legs and a head with two faces. Fearing their dominance, Zeus separated them into two different portions, sentencing them to spend their lives in hunt for their other halves (Lectures). Since they had been condemned by this curse from Zeus, unions in the 19th century failed since they never had the feeling of love to begin with. One could say that since they weren’t soulmates, their marriage wasn’t fruitful. The bond that the species have felt is what they have all longed for what we call true love. Our ambition is to be able to accomplish and sustain this passion.

By the 20th century, Russia was becoming a more urban place, with contributions from other countries allowing different insights on what they had believed before. Their views on marriage differed because of these new factors. “Although the double standard in judging women’s extramarital sexual conduct remained in force through the early twentieth century, the economic, social, and cultural developments of the second half of the nineteenth century brought a change in sexual behavior … institutions of higher education for women, one of the achievements of the early women’s movement, broadened women’s horizons and introduced them to new ideas” (Barbara Alpern Engel 218). Women actually had some freedom to get an education, to choose who they wanted to be with and who they wanted to be. The definition of love has started to take on a new aspect. Patriarchal ties were gradually dying, letting the new love bloom. Being able to choose the best who you lover is makes the relationship better. Modernity is granting one equality.

However, since people have the opportunity and individuals can pick whom to be with, divorce is more popular today, making the process simpler. Even if it was against the principles of religion to get divorced, they also set down regulations and measures that could get the marriage divorced, “Apart from death, the only other way to end a marriage was to get a divorce. A divorce (vincula matrimonii) could be granted if the marriage was prohibited under canonical laws (consanguinity of the parties, consummation) or because the marriage had become ‘improper or impossible’ due to one of the parties having an ill temper or committing adultery (divorce a mensa toro)” (Renata Grossi 18). In this century, getting a divorce was tough to accomplish because one party would at least try to get along with the other, and the other would fail to feel like he wasn’t going to get upset, so separating would be the best thing to do, “Our engagement did not last long. I cannot now think of that time without shame! What nastiness! Love is supposed to be spiritual and not sensual. Well, if the love is spiritual, a spiritual communion, then that spiri­tual communion should find expression in words, in con­versations, in discourse. There was nothing of the kind. It used to be dreadfully difficult to talk when we were left alone. It was the labour of Sisyphus” (Tolstoy 182) Having an abusive spouse wasn’t the only reason people got divorced, of course there were those who actually wished their marriage to grow and develop into something extraordinary, but one side wouldn’t approve. Now that’s one of the reasons why there’s a lack of effort in one’s marriage due to a lack of communication. This will hinder their relationship with each other, realizing the love is lost, not making any improvements. If they can see that communication is the answer, therefore marriage can be saved. Of course, communication is not all in a relationship, but like Robert Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love, love is made up of components leading to the unique bond.

In The Kreutzer Sonata, the theme of what love is and how each gender should behave or act in a relationship is clarified in a dispute between the old and the modern. While we continue to develop and achieve a greater understanding of ourselves, the concept of love is still in continuous evolution. In centuries past, they never loved but married out of necessity, but in modernity, people today love each other, and they share this deep connection. Someone doesn’t love because it would be convenient for them nor that they feel like they’re complete when they’re with their significant others. Being free to choose who your companion is would make a stronger partnership. Modern society is giving equality under the law to someone. Love is not only to be married, but also a feeling that makes it unique together. Even though laws in the history limited their freedom of love, to them it was never as important as long as a partnership was formed to make economic progress that was all that was required. Some partnerships still occur, as we keep learning, the binary partnership benefits from others in a similar way with different priorities, such as being satisfied with one partner’s development. The characters stood on opposite ends of the continuum, sharing their viewpoint on romance, symbolizing how not everybody in this world would share the same view. Even if other individuals can have very similar meanings, they all have different interactions altering their interpretation.

Works Cited:
“Conclusion: Law, Love and Marriage.” Looking for Love in the Legal Discourse of Marriage, by Renata Grossi, ANU Press, Canberra, Australia, 2014, pp. 108-109. Accessed 11 Dec. 2020.
“Disciplining Laboring Husbands.” Breaking the Ties That Bound: The Politics of Marital Strife in Late Imperial Russia, by Barbara Alpern Engel, 1st ed., Cornell University Press, 2011, pp. 101, Accessed 11 Dec. 2020.
“Love and Marriage.” Looking for Love in the Legal Discourse of Marriage, by Renata Grossi, ANU Press, Canberra, Australia, 2014, pp. 18. Accessed 13 Dec. 2020.
“Making Marriage: Romantic Ideals and Female Rhetoric.” Breaking the Ties That Bound: The Politics of Marital Strife in Late Imperial Russia, by Barbara Alpern Engel, 1st ed., Cornell University Press, 2011, pp. 48 . Accessed 11 Dec. 2020.
“Modern Love” Weisser, Susan Ostrov. The Glass Slipper: Women and Love Stories, Rutgers University Press, 2013. pp. 183. Accessed 13 Dec. 2020.
“The Right to Love.” Breaking the Ties That Bound: The Politics of Marital Strife in Late Imperial Russia, by Barbara Alpern Engel, 1st ed., Cornell University Press, 2011, pp. 218. Accessed 13 Dec. 2020.
Tolstoy, Leo. The Death of Ivan Ilych and Other Stories. Family Happiness: The Kreutzer Sonata: Master and Man. New York, Signet, Feb. 1960, pp. 160–162, 182
“Why Charlotte Brontë Despised Jane Austen” Weisser, Susan Ostrov. The Glass Slipper: Women and Love Stories, Rutgers University Press, 2013. pp. 37. Accessed 13 Dec. 2020.