Kreutzer translation problem

[Katz, Michael R.]

	Dear Colleagues:
>>
>> I am puzzling over one phrase in Chapter 1 of Tolstoy's Kreutzer
>>Sonata. 

>>Here's the lead up in English and the quote in Russian.
>>It's the second clause I don't get:
>>
>> “That’s the way you men think,” the lady said, not yielding and
>> glancing at us. “You’ve given yourselves freedom, but you want to
>> lock women up in a tower. Then I suppose you permit yourselves
>> everything.”

>> "Позволения никто не дает, а только что от мужчины в доме ничего не
>> прибудет, а женщина-жено — утлый сосуд —," продолжал внушать купец.
>>
>> The Maudes says "but a man doesn't bring offspring into the
>> home."

>> David McDuff says: "it's just that home profits nothing from a
>> man's endeavors."

>> Pevear and Volokhonsky say: 'it's only that a man doesn't bring
>> additions to the household."
>>
>> Does anyone have an idea for what he is talking about?
>>
>>	Michael Katz
		Middlebury College
>

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