This book examines the relation between mothers and their sons and daughters and the way in which these relations are expressed in fictional texts. In male–authored novels of adultery in French, English, German and Russian, the desired woman often has sons to whom she is tied more bindingly than to her husband; a more direct rival to the lover, a son often falls ill and potentially threatens the affair – thus the woman is kept after all within the patriarchal chain. Using a variety of literary sources and drawing upon recent feminist and psychoanalytical theory, Naomi Segal addresses questions such as: What place does the mother seek for herself in the chain between fathers and sons or between mothers and daughters?