Svidrigailov and Marfa Petrovna's marriage

The marriage between Mr. Svidrigailov and Marfa Petrovna appears in the narrative chiefly through its consequences for Avdotya Romanovna Raskolnikova, who works in their household as a governess. In the account given in Raskolnikov’s mother’s letter, the couple’s household is at once a place where Marfa can behave generously and where her husband’s conduct creates danger for a young woman who cannot easily leave. The eventual reversal—from Marfa’s accusation of Avdotya to her public defense of her—makes the marriage a setting for both the exercise and the correction of power.

Marriage and Household

Marfa Petrovna is identified as Mr. Svidrigailov’s wife, and their household is the setting for Avdotya’s employment. Avdotya had received a hundred roubles in advance when she became governess; repayment through deductions from her salary made it difficult to quit. She had also taken the position chiefly to send sixty roubles to her brother, Rodion Romanovitch Raskolnikov, whose need for money was acute. The household relationship therefore reaches beyond the married couple: the arrangement gives Mr. Svidrigailov authority over an employee whose financial obligations restrict her freedom to leave.

The letter presents Marfa as kind and generous toward Avdotya even while describing the latter’s distress. It also notes that Mr. Svidrigailov could behave rudely, making disrespectful and mocking remarks at table, especially when drinking and reverting to what the letter calls his old regimental habits. The account does not give a full history of the marriage or describe its ordinary private life. Instead, it shows the couple through a decisive household crisis in which his behavior, her interpretation of it, and her later response carry the story.

Mr. Svidrigailov’s Pursuit of Avdotya

The mother’s account says that Mr. Svidrigailov had conceived a passion for Avdotya from the beginning, while concealing it beneath rudeness and contempt. His attraction is presented as entangled with his position as a married man and head of a family. The letter suggests that he may have felt shame at his own hopes, and that his resentment and jeering manner could have served to hide them from others; these are possibilities proposed by the letter writer, not a fuller explanation from Mr. Svidrigailov himself.

Eventually, he made Avdotya an open proposal, offering inducements and suggesting that he could abandon his existing life, take her to another estate, or go abroad with her. Avdotya could not simply leave at once. The advance she owed was one constraint; avoiding suspicion and sparing Marfa’s feelings were others. Leaving under those circumstances risked a rupture in the family as well as scandal for Avdotya. The marriage is thus shown not merely as a bond between husband and wife, but as the structure within which his pursuit threatens the reputation and livelihood of a dependent young woman.

Marfa’s Accusation and Avdotya’s Expulsion

The crisis breaks when Marfa accidentally overhears her husband imploring Avdotya in the garden. She misunderstands what she hears and blames Avdotya, treating her as the cause of the situation. The confrontation is immediate: Marfa strikes Avdotya, refuses to listen to an explanation, and orders her sent away to her mother. Avdotya’s belongings are thrown pell-mell into a plain peasant’s cart; in heavy rain she must travel seventeen versts in the open vehicle.

Marfa’s action turns a private misunderstanding into a public injury. For a month, gossip spreads through the town and surrounding district, with Marfa herself repeating a version that casts Avdotya in a discreditable light. The mother’s letter describes contemptuous looks, whispers, and openly spoken remarks that make it difficult for the two women even to attend church. Their acquaintances avoid them, and the family faces the prospect of further insult and eviction after shopmen and clerks threaten to smear the gates of their house with pitch. The letter emphasizes the unequal reach of the accusation: Marfa’s social standing and talkative circulation of her story give it a force that Avdotya cannot readily counter.

Proof, Repentance, and Public Repair

The reversal begins when Mr. Svidrigailov returns to his senses and gives Marfa evidence of Avdotya’s innocence. The decisive document is a letter Avdotya had been forced to write to him before Marfa interrupted them in the garden. In it, Avdotya had refused secret meetings and personal explanations, rebuked his conduct toward his wife, and appealed to his responsibilities as a father and head of a family. The letter makes clear that Avdotya had resisted his advances rather than encouraged them. Servants’ testimony also supports her account, revealing that they had seen and understood more of the household’s dealings than Mr. Svidrigailov assumed.

Marfa accepts the evidence. The following Sunday, she goes to the Cathedral, prays in tears, and then visits Avdotya and her mother to confess her error and ask forgiveness. Her change is not confined to a private apology. She travels from house to house, publicly asserting Avdotya’s innocence and making Avdotya’s letter available to be read and copied. Marfa continues these visits for several days, even arranging them in response to complaints about who had heard the letter first. The mother considers this public campaign excessive, but it succeeds: Avdotya’s reputation is restored, and the disgrace of the affair comes to rest on Mr. Svidrigailov as the person responsible.

Narrative Significance

The episode gives the marriage a sharply divided public and private meaning. Mr. Svidrigailov’s conduct makes his household unsafe for Avdotya, while Marfa’s initial misreading magnifies the harm by turning suspicion into social punishment. Yet the marriage is not presented as an unchanging alliance against Avdotya: Mr. Svidrigailov eventually supplies the evidence that clears her, and Marfa uses her own social influence to undo the slander she helped spread. Her repentance restores Avdotya’s standing, but it does not erase the exposure of the husband’s misconduct or the vulnerability created by Avdotya’s employment and debt.

Because these events reach the reader through Raskolnikov’s mother’s letter, the marriage is conveyed as part of a family account of hardship, concealment, and sudden reversal rather than as an independent portrait of married life. Its narrative importance lies in the way a domestic crisis expands into public disgrace and then public vindication: Marfa’s voice first helps condemn Avdotya, and later becomes the means by which the accusation is withdrawn.