Marriage traps women in a love that increases as it is refused.

Evidence

October 11: I am terribly, terribly sad, and withdrawing further and further into myself. My husband is ill and out of sorts and doesn’t love me. I expected this, yet I could never have imagined it would be so terrible. Why do people always think I am so happy? What no one seems to realize is that I cannot create happiness, either for him or for myself. Before when I was feeling miserable I would ask myself, “What is the use of living when you make others unhappy and yourself wretched?” This thought keeps recurring to me now, and I am terrified. He grows colder and colder every day, while I, on the contrary, love him more and more … I keep thinking of my own family and how happy my life was with them; now, my God, it breaks my heart to think that nobody loves me. Darling Mother, Tanya—what wonderful people they were, why did I ever leave them?… it gnaws at my conscience … Lyovochka is a wonderful man … Now I have lost everything I once possessed, all my energy for work, life, and household tasks has been wasted. Now I want only to sit in silence all day, doing nothing but think bitter thoughts. I wanted to do some work, but could not; … I long to play the piano but it is so awkward in this place … He suggested today that I stay at home while he went off to Nikolskoe. I should have agreed and set him free from my presence, but I simply could not … Poor man, he is always looking for something to divert him and take him away from me. What is the point of living? — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1264

Categorization

• XREF: The diary is Tolstoy’s wife Sofia; resonates with the self-erasure theme running throughout The Second Sex chapters on the married woman. — connects to: Wifely devotion becomes tyranny because husbands refuse reciprocity — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1367; Stable love affairs reproduce the very vices of marriage they promised to escape — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1627

Broader Connections

• Wifely devotion becomes tyranny because husbands refuse reciprocity #expands (0.85) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1367
• Stable love affairs reproduce the very vices of marriage they promised to escape #corroborates (0.75) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1627