Married Life and Family Problems
Ivan Pavlov married Seraphima Vasilievna Karchevskaya on May 1, 1881. They met in 1878 or 1879 when Seraphima went to St. Petersburg to study at the Pedagogical Institute. Seraphima, called Sara for short, was born in 1855. In her later years, she suffered from ill health and died in 1947. Love touched Ivan far before it touched Sara. It was not until three years after their first meeting that Sara really began to fall in love with Ivan.
The first nine years of their marriage were made miserable by financial problems. Pavlov and his wife often had to stay with others in order to have a home. For a while they even had to live apart so they could find hospitality. Although their general lack of money caused despair, material welfare was a secondary consideration. Spiritual well-being was of a primary consideration.
Sara’s first pregnancy unfortunately ended in a miscarriage. When Sara became pregnant for the second time, however, the couple took great care and the baby arrived safely. Their first child, a son, was named Mirchik. Sara adored Mirchik and became very depressed after his early passing. Sara and Mirchik were staying in a country home when he died, most likely as a result of some children’s summer disease. Ivan and Sara eventually had three more children: Vsevolod, Vladimir, and Vera. Their youngest son, Vsevolod, died of pancreatic cancer in 1935. Only one year before Pavlov’s own death.
Read more about this topic: Ivan Pavlov
Famous quotes containing the words married, life, family and/or problems:
“Every married man is in danger of being cuckolded. Cuckoldry is naturally one of the prerogatives of marriage.”
—François Rabelais (1494–1553)
“In short, no association or alliance can be happy or stable without me. People can’t long tolerate a ruler, nor can a master his servant, a maid her mistress, a teacher his pupil, a friend his friend nor a wife her husband, a landlord his tenant, a soldier his comrade nor a party-goer his companion, unless they sometimes have illusions about each other, make use of flattery, and have the sense to turn a blind eye and sweeten life for themselves with the honey of folly.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)
“Unfortunately, life may sometimes seem unfair to middle children, some of whom feel like an afterthought to a brilliant older sibling and unable to captivate the family’s attention like the darling baby. Yet the middle position offers great training for the real world of lowered expectations, negotiation, and compromise. Middle children who often must break the mold set by an older sibling may thereby learn to challenge family values and seek their own identity.”
—Marianne E. Neifert (20th century)
“The three great problems of this century, the degradation of man in the proletariat, the subjection of women through hunger, the atrophy of the child by darkness.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)