Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) wrote about marriage throughout his life, but two of his works deal specifically with this topic. The Physiology of Marriage (1829) is a witty treatise on the war of the sexes. Listed here are all the means a husband can resort to to avoid becoming a cuckold. However, Balzac looks gloomily at the prospects of marriage: sooner or later, the wife will still cheat on her husband, and at best he will get “rewards” in the form of delicious food or a high position. The Minor Troubles of Married Life (1846) depicts marriage from a different perspective. Here Balzac talks about family everyday life: the spouses move from tender feelings to cooling, and only those couples who have arranged a marriage of four are happy. The author himself called this book “hermaphrodite”, since the story is told first from a male and then from a female point of view. In addition, this book is experimental: Balzac invites the reader to choose the characteristics of the characters themselves and mentally fill in the gaps in the text. Both works are published in translation and with notes by Vera Milchina, leading researcher at STEPS RANEPA and IVGI RGGU. The translation of “The Physiology of Marriage,” first published in 1995, has been significantly revised for this edition; the translation of “Minor Troubles” is published for the first time.

Contents: Physiology of marriageMinor troubles in married life