Female self-abandonment in love is actually an avid will to be

Evidence

Many examples have already proven to us that this dream of annihilation is in fact an avid will to be. In all religions, the adoration of God is part of the devotee’s desire for his own salvation; by giving herself up entirely to the idol, the woman hopes he will give her possession both of herself and of the universe contained in him. In most cases, it is first the justification, the exaltation of her ego, she asks of her lover. Many women do not abandon themselves to love unless they are loved in return: and the love they are shown is sometimes enough to make them fall in love. The young girl has dreamed of herself as seen through the man’s eyes: it is in man’s eyes that the woman believes she has at last found herself. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1849

Categorization

• DEFINE: Establishes Beauvoir’s core paradox: the woman’s apparent self-sacrifice in love is the very form her project of being takes — love for the woman is self-possession, not self-loss.
• XREF: Echoes the master-slave dialectic from Hegel as filtered through Sartre; the woman seeks recognition through the lover exactly as the slave seeks it through the master. — connects to: Dominating women can surrender sexually precisely because they remain masters — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1041; Women in love seek to be indispensable rather than merely wanted; A woman’s self-enslavement in love is itself a strategy of subjugation — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1872 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Male love requires woman as an object who remains unconscious of herself #qualifies (0.85) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 614
• Being loved gives a woman justification for self-cherishing through the lover’s witness #complicates (0.80) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1851
• Women’s quest for reasons to live through mystification gives their destinies romantic glory #corroborates (0.78)