The husband is condemned by duty while the lover offers chosen, free otherness.

Evidence

Some moralists have been outraged by the preference shown to the lover, and I have pointed out the efforts of bourgeois literature to rehabilitate the figure of the husband; but it is absurd to defend him by showing that often in the eyes of society—that is to say, other men—he is better than his rival: what is important here is what he represents for the wife. So there are two traits that make him detestable. First of all, it is he who assumes the thankless role of initiator; the contradictory demands of the virgin who dreams of being both violated and respected almost surely condemn him to failure; she remains forever frigid in his arms; with her lover she experiences neither the torment of defloration nor the initial humiliation of modesty overcome; she is spared the trauma of surprise: she knows more or less what to expect; more honest, less vulnerable, less naive than on her wedding night, she does not confuse ideal love and physical hunger, sentiment and sexual excitement: when she takes a lover, it is a lover she wants. This lucidity is an aspect of the freedom of her choice. For here lies the other defect weighing on her husband: he was usually imposed and not chosen. Either she accepted him in resignation, or she was given over to him by her family; in any case, even if she married him for love, she makes him her master by marrying him; their relations have become a duty, and he often takes on the figure of tyrant. Her choice of lover is doubtless limited by circumstances, but there is an element of freedom in this relationship; to marry is an obligation, to take a lover is a luxury; it is because he has solicited her that the woman yields to him: she is sure, if not of his love, at least of his desire; it is not for the purpose of obeying laws that he acts upon his desire. He also has this advantage: that his seduction and prestige are not tarnished by the frictions of everyday life; he remains removed, an other. Thus the woman has the impression of getting out of herself in their meetings, of finding new riches: she feels other. This is above all what some women seek in a liaison: to be involved, surprised, rescued from themselves by the other. A rupture leaves them with a desperate empty feeling. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1622

Categorization

• DEFINE: This passage develops the existentialist concept of the lover as ‘other’ — the chosen, free transcendence that rescues a woman from immanence, versus the husband as imposed master/duty.
• XREF: Connects to Beauvoir’s own earlier analysis of initiation and the virgin’s contradictory demands, and to the Hegelian master-slave dialectic running through the whole book. — connects to: Woman’s love-religion seeks possession while paradoxically preserving the lover’s freedom. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1882; The lover demands to be chosen absolutely, not as one among others — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 948

Broader Connections

• Woman’s love-religion seeks possession while paradoxically preserving the lover’s freedom. #expands (0.85) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1882
• The lover demands to be chosen absolutely, not as one among others #expands (0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 948