Family Happiness

Family Happiness is a novella by Leo Tolstoy, first published in 1859.

The story follows a young woman who, after the death of her mother, falls in love with an older family friend. Their relationship develops into marriage, but the happiness she initially imagines is challenged by differences in age, expectations, and ideas about love.

As she becomes attracted to fashionable society and a more exciting social life, tensions grow within the marriage. Through her changing feelings, Tolstoy explores the transformation of romantic passion into a quieter form of companionship, as well as the compromises and emotional maturity required for lasting family life.

"Days, weeks, two whole months of seclusion in the country slipped by unnoticed, as we thought then; and yet those two months comprised feelings, emotions, and happiness, sufficient for a lifetime. Our plans for the regulation of our life in the country were not carried out at all in the way that we expected; but the reality was not inferior to our ideal."

This text uses the English translation by J. D. Duff, first published by Oxford University Press in 1924 and subsequently included in The Works of Leo Tolstoy, Vol. XVI, published by the Tolstoy Society and Oxford University Press in 1928.