The Cossacks (1863) by Tolstoy is a story about the Cossack life and people through a story of a Russian aristocrat in love with a Cossack girl. "All Cossacks make their own wine, and drunkenness is not so much a general tendency as a rite, the non-fulfillment of which would be considered apostasy. The Cossack looks upon a woman as an instrument for his welfare; only the unmarried girls are allowed to amuse themselves."