Conjugal loyalty requires both partners’ concrete economic equality and freedom

Evidence

The wife’s great excuse is that she is forced to involve her whole self in marriage: she has no profession, no skills, no personal relations, even her name is not her own; she is nothing but her husband’s “other half.” If he abandons her, she will most often find no help, either within or outside of herself. … True, she seems to have been a contemptible shrew: But could one ask her to love her tyrant and bless her enslavement? For there to be loyalty and friendship between spouses, the sine qua non is that both must be free vis-à-vis each other and concretely equal. As long as man alone possesses economic autonomy and holds—by law and custom—privileges conferred on him by his masculinity, it is natural that he should so often appear a tyrant, inciting woman to revolt and duplicity. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1324

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘sine qua non’ of equality for friendship directly anticipates the free-choice ethics of the Conclusion chapter, and echoes Mill’s ‘Subjection of Women’. — connects to: Economic change converts marriage from servitude into reciprocal free contract — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1093; Authentic love requires reciprocal recognition of both partners’ freedoms — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1883; Freedom and equality form a fundamental, unresolved antinomy — Georg Simmel, The Sociology of Georg Simmel, 2567 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Authentic love requires reciprocal recognition of both partners’ freedoms #expands (0.85) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1883
• Freedom and equality form a fundamental, unresolved antinomy #complicates (0.72) — Georg Simmel, The Sociology of Georg Simmel, 2567