A Marriage Proposal

The theme of ego and pride disrupting relationships structures the play, driving each escalation of conflict and preventing any real resolution. The disputes over the fields and the dogs serve as pretexts for deeper struggles over dominance and recognition. Neither Lomov nor Nataliya can tolerate the suggestion that they might be wrong or that the other party might possess superior knowledge or judgment. When Lomov insists, “Bullock Fields are mine!” (441), and Nataliya responds, “Ours!”, they are asserting personal authority and family honor as much as property claims.

Pride functions in the play as a force that operates independently of rational self-interest. Both characters want the marriage to occur—it serves their purposes—yet both are willing to destroy it rather than suffer any perceived slight to their dignity. Nataliya frames her objection in terms of principle: “[I]t’s the unfairness of the thing that upsets me” (439). What she experiences as unfairness, however, is simply Lomov’s refusal to acknowledge her claim as superior to his own. Her pride demands validation and cannot accept even the possibility that she might be mistaken. The escalation pattern reveals how pride feeds on itself, transforming minor disagreements into major confrontations. Each assertion by one party requires a stronger counter-assertion from the other. Neither can allow the other to have the last word. The arguments progress from factual claims to accusations of bad faith to attacks on family honor, each stage representing a deeper investment of ego in the outcome.

In part, the theme illuminates Chekhov’s critique of masculinity and femininity as constructed within gentry culture. Lomov’s physical collapses represent the failure of “masculine” self-control, yet he cannot acknowledge this failure without suffering further damage to his pride. Nataliya possesses the intelligence demanded by the conventionally “feminine” role of peacekeeper, yet she uses her intelligence to demonstrate her superiority rather than to respond diplomatically. Both are trapped by gender expectations that demand simultaneous assertion and restraint, creating psychological double-binds that generate the play’s conflicts.

More broadly, Chekhov’s treatment of this theme intersects with his class critique, suggesting that social hierarchies based on honor and status create psychological pressures that make human connection nearly impossible. The gentry class defines itself through elaborate codes of honor and precedent. Every interaction becomes an occasion for asserting or defending one’s position in the social order. The play hints that this constant vigilance about status makes authentic relationships difficult, as trust and vulnerability require letting down the guard that honor demands.

The theme of class and property obsession manifests through the characters’ complete absorption in matters of ownership, pedigree, and social distinction. The fields, for instance, matter not for any practical use but because ownership establishes historical precedent and validates family claims to respectability. Lomov insists, “I don’t need Bullock Fields, Nataliya Stepanovna, but it’s the principle of the thing” (440), revealing that abstract questions of right supersede material considerations. The argument over the dogs extends this pattern into leisure activities, cultural pursuits, and “purity” of bloodline. The dispute ostensibly concerns the animals’ hunting abilities and physical characteristics, but the real issue is which family possesses superior taste and judgment in maintaining the “proper” aristocratic lifestyle. When Nataliya declares that Splasher is “pedigreed, a thoroughbred greyhound” (446), while in Dasher’s case “there’s no point in talking about blood-lines” (446), she is treating the dogs’ ancestry as a proxy for the owners’ own claims to authentic gentry identity. 

By this point, however, the play has established that these claims are dubious: Lomov accuses Chubukov’s grandfather of embezzlement, while Chubukov retaliates that “every member of your Lomov clan has been crazy as a loon!” (442). That each family history contains a wealth of moral failings (or traits that would have been perceived as such at the time, like alcohol addiction) undercuts traditional understanding of upper-class authority. More broadly, the fact that characters who pride themselves on their education, their manners, and their adherence to proper forms so easily revert to childish petulance and vindictive cruelty reveals that their cultivation is entirely superficial, a matter of knowing which fork to use rather than possessing any genuine self-mastery or ethical development. The characters’ privileged status is a matter of circumstance rather than inherited “superiority” and thus essentially baseless.

Chekhov uses this theme to expose the spiritual emptiness of lives organized entirely around property and status. The characters demonstrate no interests, passions, or concerns beyond their estates and their social position. They are thus intellectually and emotionally impoverished despite their material resources, capable of passionate intensity only when defending property claims or status symbols. This spiritual poverty reflects broader patterns in Russian society during Chekhov’s era. The gentry class, once seen as the cultural and intellectual vanguard, has retreated into a narrow concern with preserving whatever advantages remain to it. Moreover, the progressive ideas and reformist energy that had characterized some earlier generations of nobility has given way to defensive provincialism. Chekhov depicts this decline, showing a class that has lost any sense of a larger purpose beyond self-preservation.

The theme also connects to Chekhov’s critique of materialism more broadly. Throughout his work, Chekhov examines how the pursuit of property and status corrupts human relationships and diminishes human possibility. The characters in A Marriage Proposal cannot imagine happiness or fulfillment except through ownership and social recognition. The marriage they pursue will consolidate property but cannot provide the domestic peace or emotional satisfaction that Lomov seeks, because these require qualities of character that property consciousness has destroyed.