Newly married women suffer depression, boredom, and disgust at marital intimacy

Evidence

But generally the woman wants to “hold on to” her husband as well as to refuse his domination. She struggles against him to defend her autonomy, and she fights against the rest of the world to conserve the “situation” that dooms her to dependence. This double game is difficult to play, which explains in part the worried and nervous state in which multitudes of women spend their lives. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1320 (#expands, via linked claim)

This distress is what often causes long depressions and various psychoses in the young woman. In particular, in the guise of different psychasthenic obsessions, she feels the giddiness of her empty freedom; she develops, for example, fantasies of prostitution we have already seen in young girls. Pierre Janet cites the case of a young bride who could not stand being alone in her apartment because she was tempted to go to the window and wink at passersby. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1274 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Some married women respond to their new condition by refusing adulthood entirely; The married woman’s dual struggle produces chronic anxiety and nervousness — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1320; Marital boredom can trigger fantasies of prostitution in young brides — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1274 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• The married woman’s dual struggle produces chronic anxiety and nervousness #expands (0.85) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1320
• Passionate women experience a totalizing misery that men’s activities spare them #expands (0.85)
• Marital boredom can trigger fantasies of prostitution in young brides #expands (0.82) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1274
• Boredom in marriage reduces a brilliant woman to a life of small things #corroborates (0.80) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1356