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?