Woman’s love-religion seeks possession while paradoxically preserving the lover’s freedom.

Evidence

A cautious woman in love—but these words clash—tries to convert the lover’s passion into tenderness, friendship, habit; or she tries to attach him with solid ties: a child or marriage; this desire of marriage haunts many liaisons: it is one of security; the clever mistress takes advantage of the generosity of young love to take out insurance on the future: but when she gives herself over to these speculations, she no longer deserves the name of woman in love. For she madly dreams of securing the lover’s freedom forever, but not of destroying it. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1882

Categorization

• DEFINE: Distinguishes authentic woman in love from the cautious mistress who converts passion into security — a core distinction in Beauvoir’s analysis.
• XREF: connects to: The lover demands to be chosen absolutely, not as one among others — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 948; Willing to be loved alienates the lover’s freedom into the body-for-others.; Romantic love is a struggle over who gets to define the other’s freedom. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 679 (+10 more)

Broader Connections

• A woman’s total self-giving in love turns into total demand on her beloved #corroborates (0.95) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1869
• A woman’s self-enslavement in love is itself a strategy of subjugation #expands (0.90) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1872
• Jealousy tortures a woman because certainty would force her to renounce love as religion #qualifies (0.85) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1879
• Romantic love demands proof through the beloved’s willingness to violate morality for the lover #expands (0.80)