Gifts given to a kept woman function as instruments of continued control

Evidence

The gifts showered on her are chains. And are these clothes and jewels she wears really hers? The man sometimes reclaims them after they break up, as Sacha Guitry once did with elegance. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1687

Categorization

• SEED: An essay angle: the gift as an instrument of servitude — how gifts bind recipients through obligation and how ‘reclaiming’ gifts retroactively exposes the power asymmetry hidden behind generosity.
• XREF: connects to: Modern conditions have atrophied the faculty of genuine gift-giving — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from…, 37; Woman is prized as yielding material that resists mastery enough to remain precious — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 376