Patriarchal marriage serves collective interests, not individual love or happiness

Evidence

Marriages, then, are generally not based on love. “The husband is, so to speak, never more than a substitute for the loved man, and not that man himself,” said Freud. This dissociation is not accidental. It is implicit in the very nature of the institution. The economic and sexual union of man and woman is a matter of transcending toward the collective interest and not of individual happiness. In patriarchal regimes, a fiancé chosen by parents had often never seen his future wife’s face before the wedding day—and this still happens today with some Muslims. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1132

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Hegel’s account of marriage as a higher ethical union subsuming individual caprice, which Beauvoir invokes just next. — connects to: Patriarchal marriage domesticated feminine cosmic power into lawful order — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 367; Economic change converts marriage from servitude into reciprocal free contract — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1093; Romantic marriage ideology reframed love as a legal duty. (+8 more)

Broader Connections

• Marriage as an institution, not the individuals in it, causes conjugal misery. #corroborates (0.82) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1368
• Marriage’s ethical dignity actually suppresses rather than dignifies women’s sexuality #expands (0.80) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1136
• Marriage annexes women to the husband’s universe #expands (0.80) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1109