serve God in the spheres of physical labor and thought, to fulfill His will; by all these activities he can fulfill his calling. But for woman the means of serving God are principally and almost exclusively through her children (because none but she can perform this service). Only through his work in man called to serve God and men; only through her children is woman called to serve. And therefore, love to one's own children, which is natural to woman, exclusive love, with which it is quite futile to argue, will always, and should always be proper to the mother-woman. This love to her child in its infancy is not at all egoism, as it is erroneously taught; but it is the love of the workman towards the work he is doing while it is in his hands. Take away his love for the objection of one's work, and work is impossible. While I am making a boot, I love it more than anything, as a mother her child. Should anyone injure it, I should be in despair; I love it thus only while I am working at it. When I have finished an attachment remains, a weak and unlawful preference; -so also with the mother. Men is called to serve mankind in multifarious works, and he loves these works while he does them; woman is called to serve through her children and she cannot but love these her children, while she is tending them -until they are three, seven, ten years old. In this I see the perfect equality between man and woman according to their common calling to serve God and man, notwithstanding the difference in the form of their service. The equality is also established in the fact that the one is as important as the other, that the one is unimaginable without the other; that the one determines the other; that for the attainment of the calling both the one and the other require knowledge of the truth; and that
Page:The Relations Tolstoy.pdf/81
