The Kreutzer Sonata

The family moved to the city, where the activity and busyness of everyday life distracted them from their unhappiness. The following winter, Pozdnychev’s wife fell ill and was told by the doctors that she should no longer conceive children. Pozdnychev protested, “profoundly disgusted,” but the doctors taught his wife methods of contraception and Pozdnychev was overruled. Over the next two years, she became healthier and more attractive than ever before, provoking fear and jealousy in her husband. Pozdnychev likens her to a newly freed “horse” and says that the vast majority of women in their society lack a bridle to constrain them.

Pozdnychev says that without the purpose of having further children, their union lost its final shred of moral “justification.” The use of contraceptives to prevent unwanted pregnancy is common among the upper classes as a matter of convenience, which Pozdnychev considers to be deeply immoral. He considers marriages between the lower classes more righteous because they at least require and produce children.

Pozdnychev states that his wife’s use of contraceptives was the true root cause of all the tragic events that would follow.