ember all the "good" things that he did for her. Again, his actions contradict his words. In real life he was the selfish, lazy tyrant who refused to work, who did not support his family in any way, who put all the troubles of life on his wife's shoulders and sent his little daughters to work, so they could support him. He did not care that his children did not receive a decent education and because of that might not have a chance to succeed in life, he did not care that that his wife's life became a sorry existence, that primarily consisted of worries about how to make ends meet. He never took action to make his family's life easier. He found an excuse, his religion, to do nothing, to exploit his wife and children, to abuse them emotionally by his " preaches of wisdom", and by constant reminding that he was a man - a superior master, and they were dumb women, born to be his servants.His own intelligence and ability for good judgement are questionable, however. He proves to be a fool on several occasions. First, he wastes all the money that his father in law left him. Then he marries off his daughter Mashah to a swindler, pretending to be a diamond dealer. Then he takes all his family's money and overpays for a grocery store that almost has no merchandize in it. He is too arrogant to bring his wife to evaluate the store and too foolish to do it himself. He prefers to waste the money to helping his wife and daughters. His vises represent the vises of the Old World, such as poverty lack of education, outdated traditions, lack of human rights for women, and hopelessness of their situation. The hypocrisy of his preaches show that many Old World views and laws are false and thus should be rebelled against and left behind.Unfortunately, women of the Old World did not have the option to rebel. The Jewish society of Eastern Europe would not tolerate it. So the women had no choice but to be servants of their men and their situatio...
