A woman who exists only through love becomes nothing when love’s object departs.

Evidence

When she realizes it, her distress reduces her worth even more; she ends up losing all attraction with her tears, demands, and scenes. An existent is what he does; to be, she has to put her trust in a foreign consciousness and give up doing anything. “I only know how to love,” writes Julie de Lespinasse. I who am only love: this title of a novel is the motto of the woman in love; she is only love, and when love is deprived of its object, she is nothing. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1880

Categorization

• DEFINE: ‘An existent is what he does’ states the existentialist axiom that grounds her whole ethic of transcendence.
• XREF: Directly channels Sartre’s being-for-itself/being-in-itself and the motto echoes Sartre’s famous summary of existentialism—existence precedes essence. — connects to: A married woman without transcendent work loses the capacity to aspire at all. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1268; A woman passed from father to husband becomes an empty vessel of borrowed opinions. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1404; The woman-in-love feels justified only by serving a demanding lover — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1861 (+1 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: The collapse of woman into ‘only love’ versus the existentialist ‘existent is what he does’ is the paradigmatic statement of immanence as lived tragedy—worth sitting with.

Broader Connections

• The woman-in-love feels justified only by serving a demanding lover #corroborates (0.85) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1861