Before you is Edward Radzinsky’s play “Monologue on Marriage” (1973). The essence of the play is expressed by the author’s hard-won phrase: “Don’t touch first marriages, these are children’s marriages.”

From an interview with E. Radzinsky: “First marriages are really children’s marriages, really. And in this play there is scorching and defenselessness. All this happened, happened... Young people perceive marriage as a joint camping trip. It seems to them that all the good things are yet to come, and this is so, intelligence, so you can be merciless... And they are brave, they boldly destroy these first marriages. In addition, there is a loving mother-in-law and mother-in-law: each of them knows what a terrible misalliance their child has made. So both spouses have somewhere to escape during their passionate quarrels, they have someone to seek justice from. The young husband is also well aware of the mysterious phrase: “If you were a man.” Apparently, from century to century, wives repeat it during shipwrecks under the name “first marriage.” Everything was so typical...”