Most women need masculine support to joyfully accept motherhood

Evidence

The woman’s relationship with her child’s father is no less important. An already mature and independent woman can desire a child belonging wholly to herself: I knew one whose eyes lit up at the sight of a handsome male, not out of sensual desire, but because she judged his stud-like capacities; there are maternal Amazons who enthusiastically welcome the miracle of artificial insemination. Even if the child’s father shares their life, they deny him any right over their offspring; they try—like Paul’s mother in Sons and Lovers—to form a closed couple with their child. But in most cases, a woman needs masculine support to accept her new responsibilities; she will only devote herself joyously to a newborn if a man devotes himself to her. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1442

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘closed couple’ maternal figure runs parallel to the possessive mother archetype in D.H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers, and to the mother-child dyad examined earlier in the chapter on maternity. — connects to: Beliefs that childbirth pain awakens maternal instinct express male resistance to easing women’s burdens