Pathological feminine love yearns to dissolve selfhood entirely into another’s will

Evidence

As far back as I can recall, all the foolish acts or all the good deeds I have done stem from the same cause, an aspiration to the perfect and ideal love where I can give myself entirely, confide all my being to another being, God, man, or woman, so superior to me that I would no longer think of leading my life or watching over myself. To find someone who would love me enough to take the trouble to make me live, someone whom I would blindly and confidently obey, sure that he would keep me from all failure and would put me on the right track, very gently and with much love, toward perfection. How I envy the ideal love of Mary Magdalene and Jesus: to be the ardent disciple of an adored and worthy master; to live and die for one’s idol, believe in him without any possible shadow of doubt, to hold at last the final victory of the Angel over the beast, to be held in his enveloping arms, so small, so pressed in his protection, and so much his that I no longer exist. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1848

Categorization

• DEFINE: A clinical first-person illustration of what Beauvoir means by love as abdication of the self — the woman’s aspiration to be utterly relieved of her own freedom and responsibility.
• DEEPTHINKING: The Janet psychasthenic’s statement pure — she yearns to ‘no longer exist’ — is a stark, paradigm-shifting illustration of how femininity’s ideal of love is indistinguishable from self-annihilation.
• XREF: connects to: Tolstoy’s ideal wife is a body stripped of the animation of her former self; Possessing the loved one wholly destroys the transcendence that made him lovable — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1875; Female self-abandonment in love is actually an avid will to be — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1849 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Female self-abandonment in love is actually an avid will to be #qualifies (0.85) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1849
• A woman’s total self-giving in love turns into total demand on her beloved #expands (0.80) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1869
• Desire’s failure to reach incarnation can flip consciousness into masochistic submission #expands (0.80)
• Female possessive love grows pathologically where sexual satisfaction is absent #qualifies (0.75) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1289
• A man’s enduring love can transform woman’s sexual submission into transcendence #contradicts (0.75) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1859
• Love is the surface where domination logic punishes the lover who loves too much #responds-to (0.75)