Marriage is structured as an economic exchange where the bride’s body is purchased

Evidence

It is still accepted that the love act is a service she renders to the man; he takes his pleasure, and he owes compensation in return. The woman’s body is an object to be purchased; for her it represents capital she has the right to exploit. Sometimes she brings a dowry to her husband; she often agrees to provide some domestic work: she will keep the house, raise the children. In any case, she has the right to let herself be supported, and traditional morality even exhorts it. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1110

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the economic analysis of women’s position in earlier chapters, and to Levi-Strauss’s kinship-as-exchange frameworks in Continental anthropology. — connects to: Greater male wealth produces greater female servitude, while shared poverty equalizes the marriage bond. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 210; Wife-as-property functions as display of the husband’s status — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 375; Economic change converts marriage from servitude into reciprocal free contract — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1093 (+9 more)

Broader Connections

• European dynastic marriage made whole populations transferable like property. #exemplifies (0.85) — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 696
• Marriage makes woman contingent while man mediates her to the universe #expands (0.80) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1196
• Marriage annexes women to the husband’s universe #expands (0.80) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1109
• The institution of inheritance causally produced woman’s subordination to man’s property #expands (0.75) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 182
• Domesticity is an alibi for conflating person with property #complicates (0.75) — Grant Bollmer, Katherine Guinness, The Influencer Factory, 124
• Human beings have an inherent property right in their own bodies #responds-to (0.75) — Tamara Lanier, From These Roots, 1265