Commodifying Domestic Bliss

This chapter analyzes the kept woman (soderzhanka), who occupied the most fluid position in imperial Russia and thus appears as a highly complex figure in literature and art of the period. The chapter looks at the ambiguity of the kept woman's status as representative of new changes in women's position at the turn of the century. Works by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Nadezhda Khvoshchinskaia, and Tolstoy feature kept women at various stages of spiritual agony. These writers question to what degree economic independence is predicated on sexual autonomy, and they depict the kept woman because of her social status as an outcast. Operating within a parallel polis and mirroring aspects of marital monogamy while possessing none of the legal rights of matrimony, the kept woman came to symbolize the promise of extramarital relations and the threat venal love posed to the traditional family unit.