Tolstoy and Happily Every After

written by Sara Ashbaugh

War and Peace is a novel about relationships, including romantic relationships between several of the characters. While these relationships provide important information on Russian culture, they also give insight into Tolstoy’s views on what a successful marriage looks like. None of the most successful relationships in the novel involve particularly passionate love; rather they focus on the importance of compatibility and partnership in a marriage. The surprisingly successful matches between Boris and Vera, Natasha and Pierre, and Nicholas and Mary are examples of this. In each case, the couples’ defining feature is how well they work together as a partnership. Boris and Vera, although they bicker frequently and struggle for power, ultimately help one another accomplish their goals. Although there is no struggle for power in the relationship between Natasha and Pierre, there is a power imbalance. The same power imbalance is seen in the relationship between Natasha’s parents, with the wife having more control. However, Tolstoy does not present this imbalance as a negative, on the contrary, it appears to be the reason the relationship is successful. It makes it possible for the pair to make decisions and work together effectively. Rather than treating idealized passionate love as the key to marital success, Tolstoy recognizes the power of simple compatibility. In fact, the relationships in the novel that did involve passionate love, like Nicholas and Sonya or Natasha and Andrew, were not successful. Tolstoy seems to have a realistic idea of what makes a successful partnership