Helping a husband’s work cannot give the wife autonomous work of her own.

Evidence

In certain privileged cases the wife can succeed in becoming a real companion for her husband: she discusses his plans, gives him advice, participates in his work. But she is deluding herself if she thinks she can accomplish work of her own like that: he alone remains the active and responsible freedom. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1352

Categorization

• XREF: Directly anticipates the companionate-marriage critique and presages the invisibility of women’s intellectual labor. — connects to: Total dependence reduces a wife’s freedom to abstract interiority that cannot save her — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1355; A wife can lose her own self by absorbing her husband’s thoughts and vision. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1267; Traditional marriage confines woman to immanence and denies her transcendence — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1196 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Total dependence reduces a wife’s freedom to abstract interiority that cannot save her #expands (0.85) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1355
• Traditional marriage confines woman to immanence and denies her transcendence #expands (0.85) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1196
• A wife can lose her own self by absorbing her husband’s thoughts and vision. #expands (0.82) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1267
• Informal human-relation influence cannot substitute for technicalized formal power. #expands (0.75)