Tolstoy On Marriage

Another interesting passage from Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina"

Pevear/Volokhonsky translation, pg 767:

In order to undertake anything in family life, it is necessary that there be either complete discord between the spouses or loving harmony. But when the relations between spouses are uncertain and there is neither one nor the other, nothing can be undertaken.

Many families stay for years in the same old places, hateful to both spouses, only because there is neither full discord nor harmony.