Woman in love keeps her man perpetually present to sustain her own being.
Evidence
The god must not sleep, or he becomes clay and flesh; he must not cease to be present, or his creature founders in nothingness. For woman, man’s sleep is avarice and betrayal. At times the lover wakes his mistress: it is to make love to her; she wakes him simply to keep him from sleeping, to keep him nearby, thinking only of her, there, closed up in the room, in the bed, in her arms—like God in the tabernacle—this is what the woman desires: she is a jailer. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1874
Categorization
- DEFINE: Clarifies the structural asymmetry: his sleep is a being-withdrawing act that threatens her, so she becomes a ‘jailer’ of his presence.
- XREF: The ‘god must not sleep or he becomes clay’ trope echoes the mythic-religious framing of the beloved as deity — connects to Beauvoir’s elevation of the man to an absolute subject, mirroring how woman becomes the contingent Other. — connects to: Woman’s strength always flows from devotion to a master’s cause, never her own — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 577; A woman needs her male lover to remain transcendent, not relapse into immanence — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1872; A woman’s total self-giving in love turns into total demand on her beloved — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1869 (+1 more)
- DEEPTHINKING: Beauvoir compresses the entire existential mechanism — woman’s self is contingent on the man’s constant presence, so she must guard his attention like a jailer — into a few near-parables. The woman-in-love’s enslavement is structural, not personal.
Broader Connections
- A woman’s total self-giving in love turns into total demand on her beloved
#corroborates(0.82) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1869 - Woman’s love-religion seeks possession while paradoxically preserving the lover’s freedom.
#corroborates(0.75) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1882