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This early novella by the famous Russian author won’t strike the reader as provocative or subversive like some of his later works. “Family happiness�� explores the predictable conflicts of marriage within the frame of convention, leaving little space for questioning the social conditions of Russia in Tolstoy’s days.

After her widowed mother dies, Masha, a young noblewoman of seventeen, starts looking at the family friend and land owner of thirty-six, Sergey Mikhlaylych, in a romantic way. The difference in age prevents Sergey from expressing his reciprocal love, but after several years of tentative courting they finally get married.
What ensues is ritualistic dance of two people joined at first with the blinding passion of first love but with essentially different expectations that will eventually puncture the bliss of the newly married couple.

The story might be simple in its plot developement, but Tolstoy’s narrative skill shines as bright as ever. The characters are incredibly human because of their complex and often inconsistent natures, making their emotions easily universalizable and therefore, recognizable to the reader. Masha’s need for excitement after the thrill of the first months of marriage embodies the common disatisfaction that affects most humans at some point in life. Sergey’s patient understanding of Masha’s evolution is fatherly but also condescending, which somehow speaks of Tolstoy’s rather traditional outlook on the role of men and women in the family unit.

“Family Happiness�� is far from the exultant ode to love that Turgenev professed in “First Love�� but a cautionary tale about the fleeting effects of young infatuation, where gratitude for the mundane and tolerance towards disillusionment bespeak of maturity and acquired wisdom. Maybe unimaginative, but also a compassionate tale on marriage, a recognition to those who walk side by side, in spite of everything, surviving the hard edges of time.