tolstoy's wife

sonya andreyevna was indeed very young - she had just turned eighteen, and would have looked even younger...tolstoy was acutely conscious of his bride being a child and he even refers to her as such in his diaries...

sonya refers to herself in letters as tolstoy's eldest daughter and appreciates his parental advice.

sonya's dad - andrey bers - proposed to sonya's mom, lyubov islavina when she was 16 (after he'd treated her as one of his patients) : andrey was 34 at the time.