Stages on Life’s Way

by Søren Kierkegaard

  But I am not even jealous of the mother. A woman’s life as a mother is an actuality so infinitely rich in variety that my love has enough to do day after day to discover something new. As mother, woman has no situation of which one might say that in this she is her most beautiful; as mother she is constantly in that situation, and mother love is soft as pure gold and pliant in every decision, and yet whole. And the husband’s joy is new every day; it is not consumed even though he feeds on it, for it is like the food in Valhalla;72 and even though he does not live on it, 73it is nonetheless certain that he does not live on bread alone74 but also on the approving admiration that accompanies the mother’s achievements; he has in his home panis et circenses [bread and circuses].75

  To what a multiplicity of collisions mother love is exposed, and how beautiful the mother is every time her self-renouncing, self-sacrificing love comes out victorious! I am not speaking here of what certainly is well known and is a given, that the mother sacrifices her life for the child. That sounds so exalted, so sentimental, and does not have the proper marital stamp. It is just as discernible, just as great, and just as endearing [VI 131] in small things. Wherever I see it, I admire it, and not infrequently one sees it even where one does not expect it—on the street, for example. The other day, I was walking steadily at my businesslike pace from the other end of the city to the courthouse to render a verdict; it was about half past one. Inadvertently I looked across the street; there was a young mother who was walking along hand in hand with her little son. The little fellow was probably about two and a half years old. The mother’s attire, her demeanor, seemed to suggest that she even belonged to the upper class, and thus I was surprised to see that no servant or maid accompanied her. I immediately made numerous guesses—that her carriage very likely was standing in another street or several houses away, or she perhaps was just going a few houses from the place where she lived or was etc. I stop guessing and hope that the reader is grateful to me for carrying out my energetic and radical economies. But basically it was indeed wonderful enough. The boy was a charming child; he asked curiously about everything, stood still, looked, and asked: What’s that? I quickly put on my glasses so that I could see properly and properly enjoy the lovable countenance, the tender motherliness with which she entered into everything, the fond joy with which she regarded her little darling. The boy’s questioning made an awkward situation for her—perhaps no one has told her what a profound wise man has said, that talking with a child is a tentamen rigorosum [rigorous examination];76 perhaps the circle to which she seemed to belong did not even consider it an art—how terribly awkward, then, to be placed in a dilemma by a tiny tot’s questioning, together with his loudness, which invited passersby to listen—and the scene was on Østergade.77 Embarrassment—I found none; it was easy to read the beautiful motherly joy on her friendly face, and the situation did not mark it as false.

  Suddenly the little one stands still and demands to be carried. This clearly was contrary to the arrangement they had made when they left home, a breach of agreement—otherwise a nursemaid would have been along. Here was a vexing dilemma—but not for her. With the most loving look in the world, she picked him up and walked straight ahead without looking for a side street. To me this was as beautiful and solemn [VI 132] as a procession, and I devoutly joined it. Several people turned around. She noticed nothing; altogether unchanged, absorbed in her motherly happiness, she did not walk faster. I have sat as an examining judge on a commission of inquiry, and because of that I have a certain competence in reading faces; but at the risk of dismissal from my office, I affirm that there was not a trace of embarrassment or of any repressed anger or of any growing impatience; that there was no attempt to let her face show any reflection upon what was almost ludicrous in the situation. She walked along Østergade as if she were walking the floor at home, with her little one in her arms.

  Mother love will offer its life for the child; in this clash it seemed to me equally beautiful. If the little one was in the wrong, if he perhaps was well able to walk, if he was being naughty, no attention would be paid to it at home; and what, then, would have made the difference, what else but that the mother had reflected upon herself. There perhaps are few collisions in which even affectionate parents more easily make a mistake than when the whole matter is a trifle, but this little trifle makes an awkward situation for them. Perhaps a child has bungled his manners a bit; in everyday life we laugh at it and the child does not suspect in the least that it is supposed to be a fault. Then there is someone present, and the vain mother wants to be flattered a bit—and see, the child’s greeting is a bit clumsy, and the mother becomes angry—not over a trifle, no, but her reflection upon herself suddenly changes the trifle into something important. Indeed, if that little lad had fallen down, if he had bumped himself, or if he perhaps had come too close to a carriage, if the task had been to save the child at the risk of one’s life, I certainly would have seen mother love, but to me this undemonstrative expression of it was just as beautiful.

  Mother love is just as beautiful in the routine of everyday life as it is on the most crucial occasion, and it is actually essentially beautiful in the routine of everyday life, for there it is in its element, because there, without receiving any impulse or any increment of force through external catastrophes, it is motivated solely within itself, is nourished by itself, quickens itself through its own original drive, is unpretentious and yet always up and doing its beloved work. Poor man, who must go out in the world to seek a daisy [Tusindfryd78] such as that and yet does not find it; poor man, who at most has a notion that his neighbor grows it; happy the married man who really knows how to rejoice in his thousandfold joy [Tusind-Fryd]. If he finds this flower somewhere else than in his own yard, [VI 133] this flower that—just as that century plant is remarkable for blossoming only once every hundred years—has the even more seldom rarity that it blossoms every day, and does not even close at night—then he has the joy of telling at home what he has seen out in the world.

  Yesterday I told my wife of a little incident that attracted my attention to such a degree that it made me what ordinarily I am not—an inattentive and distracted listener to a sermon. Perhaps the young mother who provided the occasion for my becoming distracted was wrong in taking a little child along to church; perhaps, but I forgive her, for presumably she did so in order not to entrust it to a nursemaid during the mother’s absence. I draw that conclusion from the fact that she really was a mother who goes to church, not a fine lady who pays a French visit. Do not misunderstand me, as if it were the length of time one spends in church that matters, far from it—indeed, in my opinion a poor hired girl who has all she can do to slip away from home and yet despite all her haste does not manage to arrive there in time for more than hearing the pastor say Amen, in my opinion she is able to bring blessing home from her church attendance, but anyone who otherwise has plenty of time for all sorts of things in life could also find time to go to church properly. Thus our churchgoer came in good time and along with her came little Fidgets; yet I am convinced that the sermon and the whole divine service did not have a more devout listener or a more worthy participant than she. She was ushered into a box pew; the unauthorized member of the congregation was placed on the seat, presumably in the hope that he would sit there like a legitimate member. But this assumption does not seem to have occurred to the little one. The mother bowed her head in prayer, covered her eyes with a handkerchief. Long before she raised her head again, the little one had jumped down and began to crawl around in the box pew. She was praying and went on praying, quite undisturbed. Having ended her prayer, she set him up on the seat again and presumably spoke a few chiding words to him. The service began, but the game had indeed already begun before the service, and the little one seemed to find his own kind of fun in this up again, down again, and up again. Until this time he had sat at his mother’s right and had another woman at his right, while the mother sat at the end of the box pew. Now they chang
ed places. After first seeing that the door was shut, the mother then moved over, shared fairly [VI 134] with him so that he had the corner of the box pew at his disposal. He made no noise, but like a child accustomed to look after himself he started to play with his mother’s parasol, and only insofar as he wanted to crawl farther along on the seat was the way blocked for him. The mother was and continued to be absorbed in her devotion; only when the pastor paused did she lovingly look down at the little underworldling. Her face aglow with joy in the child, she again turned her gaze to the pastor and listened to the discourse with the devotion of her whole soul. To be able to divide equally this way, to have joy in the child even when he is disturbing, or at least seems to be about to disturb, or is being somewhat of a nuisance, to be free of any foolish demands upon the child—for many parents demand almost more devotion from a little fellow like this than from themselves and thus disturb both themselves and the child by sitting and scolding, rebuking and rearranging—consequently, to be able to divide equally in such a way that she also was concentrated on her devotions with undivided soul—that is indeed a beautiful expression of mother love. Insignificant? Oh, yes, but mother love is essentially beautiful precisely in what is insignificant.

  Only a married man, however, has a live feeling for the beautiful performances of mother love; he also has the genuine sympathy that is formed by the earnestness in grasping the infinite significance of the task and the joy in life in wanting to make the discovery, although he does not therefore simply burst into words and jubilation. Or are jealousy and evil passions alone supposed to make a married man clear-sighted and alert, should not faithful love [Kjærlighed] be able to do the same—indeed, be able to keep him alert longer? Or did not the wise virgins stay awake longer than the foolish ones?79 In this respect a married man is—in the good sense of the word—like a deceiver portrayed by Shakespeare:* ein Gelegenheitshascher, dessen Blick Vortheile prägt und falschmünzt, wenn selbst kein wirklicher Vortheil sich ihm darbietet [a finder-out of occasions, whose eye can stamp and counterfeit advantages, even when no true advantage presents itself to him].80 In other words, a married man does it with the quiet joy that shows that he does not pretend to be an expert; neither does he counterfeit, and he is rarely in the situation where he does not find such advantages.

  * Othello, II, 1, Iago.

  [VI 135] As a bride, woman is more beautiful than as a maiden; as a mother she is more beautiful than as a bride; as a wife and mother she is a good word in season,81 and with the years she becomes more beautiful. The young girl’s beauty is obvious to many; it is more abstract, more extensive. This is why they flock about her, the fantasts, 82 the pure and the impure. Then the god [Guden] brings the one who is her lover. He really sees her beauty, for one loves the beautiful, and this must be understood as being synonymous with: to love is to see the beautiful. Thus reflection inevitably misses the beautiful. From now on her beauty becomes more intensive and concrete. The housewife does not have a flock of adorers; she is not even beautiful, she is beautiful only in the eyes of her husband. To the same degree this beauty becomes more and more concrete, she becomes less and less subject to evaluation by ordinary appraising and selecting. Is she therefore less beautiful? Is an author less rich in ideas because ordinary observation finds nothing, while the reader who has made him his sole study nevertheless discovers an ever-greater wealth? Is it a perfection in human works of art that they look best at a distance? Is it an imperfection in the meadow flower, as in all the works of God, that under microscopic scrutiny it becomes lovelier and lovelier, more and more exquisite, more and more delicate?

  But if the wife and mother is so beautiful in her happiness or, more correctly, if she is a blessing to those to whom she belongs, then in her unhappiness and in her day of distress she is in turn more poetic than the young girl. Let her child die, and then see the grieving mother. There is indeed no one who welcomes the arrival of a baby as joyfully as a mother, but neither is there anyone who is able to grieve in this way when death comes and takes it again. But a grief that is precisely just as ideal as it is actual is the most poetic grief.

  Or a husband dies; he leaves nothing, as they say, but a grieving wife—to me it seems that he leaves behind him an infinite wealth. Let the young girl lose her beloved, let her grief be ever so deep, let her dwell in the memory of him—her grief is still abstract, likewise her memory. For this daily requiem for the dead, which is the occupation of the grieving wife, the young girl lacks the dedication and the epic presuppositions.

  Truly, I am not eager to leave behind me a great and famous [VI 136] name. If it must be this way, if in death, which is the last of all, I must take the last step, must seek separation from her whom I love, my wife, my earthly joy, if I nevertheless leave her grieving, then I have left behind me what I shall miss, indeed, the very last thing I would do without, but I have also left behind me what I most reluctantly would do without: a memorial that many times and in many ways will preserve the recollection of me better than the poet’s song and the stubborn immortality of a monument, a memorial that will subtract from itself in order to give to me.

  Finally, let the wife be tried and tested in the worst of fates: let her be unhappily married. What is the brief suffering of a deceived girl compared with this daily torment, what is the core of her pain compared with the thousand-tongued misery, this wretchedness that no one can bear to look at, this slow torturing that no one can track down—and this may be why we forget how beautiful, in turn how far more poetic, the wife is than the young girl. Great is Desdemona because of her “sublime lie”;83 we admire her, we should admire her. And yet she is greater for her angelic patience, which if it were to be described would fill more books than the largest library contains, even if it fails to fill up the boundless abyss of jealousy and disappears as if it were nothing—indeed, almost stimulates the hunger of passion.

  But woman is the weaker sex. In the present context, this remark seems to be rather mal à propos [misapplied], for she certainly has not manifested herself as such. Indeed, a silk cord can be just as strong as an iron chain, and the chain that bound the Fenris wolf84 was indeed invisible, was something that did not exist at all—what if it were the same with woman’s weakness, that it is an invisible power that expresses its strength in weakness. If the objections still want permission to use the expression “the weaker sex” about woman, well, let them have it—language usage, too, is certainly on their side. One must, however, always beware of promptly making a rule on the basis of particular observations. Hence I shall not deny that it certainly could happen that a young girl may look odd, and ultimately comic if one is so depraved as to laugh when things get out of control, when she is thrown into the extreme dismay of a decision, into a state of confusion in which a man could hardly stand and keep from being blown away. But [VI 137] who says that she must be hurled into this? The same girl, quietly and solicitously and lovingly treated, would perhaps become a lovable creature as wife and mother. Hence, we should not laugh at such things, for there is something very tragic in seeing the storm demolish the peaceful hedge where it could have been pleasant to live in security. Nor indeed should the woman be strong in such a way that the distress of dismay perhaps issues from the husband himself. If he stands firm, then the woman stands just as firm beside him, and together they stand more firm than either of them alone.

  Moreover, the trouble with the objection [that woman is the weaker sex] is that those who talk this way about woman view her only esthetically. This is again the perpetually gallant and rude, titillating and insulting talk about her having but one moment in her life or a brief time—namely, the first awakening of adolescence. But anyone who really wants to talk about her strength or weakness must, of course, see her when she stands fully armed, and that is as a wife and mother. Moreover, then she need never struggle or undergo tests of strength, and if one finally wants to talk about strength, then the first condition or the essential form of all strength is endurance [Udh
oldenhed]. When it comes to this, the man perhaps cannot equal [holde ud med] her. Then, too, what energy does every simulated movement require? But what else is devotedness than a secret manifestation of strength, a manifestation of strength that expresses itself by its opposite, just as, for example, good taste and concern for one’s appearance can express itself by effecting a kind of carelessness, although not the carelessness that every Tom, Dick, and Harry understands, just as, for example, the mature intellectual work completed with great effort has a simplicity that is not, however, the simplicity that, in his simplemindedness, every normal-school graduate admires.

  If I picture two actors, one playing the role of Don Giovanni, the other the role of the Commendatore, in the scene where the Commendatore is holding Don Giovanni by the hand while the latter desperately tries to wrench himself free,85 I ask myself which one is using the greater force. Don Giovanni is the one who suffers; the Commendatore stands calmly with his right hand extended. Yet I am betting on Don Giovanni. If the actor playing Don Giovanni were to use only half his strength, he would make the Commendatore totter; on the other hand, if he does not writhe, does not shake, he spoils the effect. So what does he do? He uses half his strength [VI 138] to express the pain, the other half to support the Commendatore, and while he appears to be trying with all his might to wrench himself away from the Commendatore, he is holding on to him so that he will not totter.

  So it is, so it is in actuality with a wife, for this was just idle conjecturing. She loves her husband so much that she always wants him to be dominant, and this is why he appears to be so strong and she so weak, for she uses her strength to support him, uses it as devotedness and submission. What wonderful weakness! Even though the gallery believes that the Commendatore has greater powers, even though the profane praise masculine strength and misuse it to humble the woman, the married man has another interpretation, and the deceived is wiser than the one not deceived, the one deceiving is more justified than the one not deceiving.