Family Happiness

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Family Happiness is an 1859 novella written by Leo Tolstoy. The story concerns the relationship between a young girl, Mashechka, and the much older Sergey Mikhaylych, an old family friend. After a somewhat awkward courtship, the two are married and move to Mikhaylych's home. Over the course of the novel, Mashechka finds that married life and her feelings for Mikhaylych are much more complex than she had thought and have little to do with her previous, slightly naive, notions of marriage, hence the ironic overtones of the title, "Family Happiness".