Romantic love demands proof through the beloved’s willingness to violate morality for the lover

Evidence

Men have rivaled each other proclaiming that love is a woman’s supreme accomplishment. “A woman who loves like a woman becomes a more perfect woman,” says Nietzsche; and Balzac: “In the higher order, man’s life is glory, woman’s is love. Woman is equal to man only in making her life a perpetual offering, as his is perpetual action.” But there again is a cruel mystification since what she offers, he cares not at all to accept. Man does not need the unconditional devotion he demands, nor the idolatrous love that flatters his vanity; he only accepts them on the condition that he does not satisfy the demands these attitudes reciprocally imply. He preaches to the woman about giving: and her gifts exasperate him; she finds herself disconcerted by her useless gifts, disconcerted by her vain existence. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1885 (#contradicts, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Men demand unconditional love while refusing what that devotion reciprocally requires — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1885; Woman’s love-religion seeks possession while paradoxically preserving the lover’s freedom. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1882; The woman-in-love feels justified only by serving a demanding lover — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1861 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Men demand unconditional love while refusing what that devotion reciprocally requires #contradicts (0.80) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1885