The lover-man divergence in love stems from differing situations, not nature

Evidence

In reality, this has nothing to do with a law of nature. It is the difference in their situations that is reflected in the conceptions man and woman have of love. The individual who is a subject, who is himself, endeavors to extend his grasp on the world if he has the generous inclination for transcendence: he is ambitious, he acts. But an inessential being cannot discover the absolute in the heart of his subjectivity; a being doomed to immanence could not realize himself in his acts. … Since she is, in any case, condemned to dependence, she would rather serve a god than obey tyrants—parents, husband, protector; she chooses to want her enslavement so ardently that it will seem to her to be the expression of her freedom; she will try to overcome her situation as inessential object by radically assuming it; through her flesh, her feelings, and her behavior, she will exalt as sovereign the one she loves, she will posit him as value and supreme reality: she will efface herself before him. Love becomes a religion for her. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1842

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The core causal mechanism of the chapter: feminine love as a strategy to convert coerced dependence into chosen devotion — women ‘choose to want their enslavement’ so it can feel like freedom, making love a religious substitute for genuine transcendence. This is the density of Beauvoir’s whole project in miniature.
• XREF: Directly continues the book’s foundational immanence/transcendence and subject/Other apparatus from earlier parts, and sets up the account of mysticism; also resonates with Nietzsche’s ressentiment logic and Hegelian master-slave dialectic. — connects to: Male desire is fleeting while women become emotionally bound after love; Male authority in love is satiable while female devotion is insatiable; Male love requires woman as an object who remains unconscious of herself — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 614 (+2 more)
• QUESTION: Beauvoir claims this is reversible if situations change — worth holding against her later chapters on the independent woman; does she think love could become symmetric?

Broader Connections

• Male desire is fleeting while women become emotionally bound after love #exemplifies (0.75)
• Male authority in love is satiable while female devotion is insatiable #exemplifies (0.75)
• Male sexuality integrates with individual transcendence while female sexuality does not #expands (0.74) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 97
• Male love requires woman as an object who remains unconscious of herself #exemplifies (0.72) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 614