Simone de Beauvoir stands as a prominent French intellectual and feminist. Her fight to expose her “second sex” theory and uncover the dejected vice of marriage illuminates in her piece, The Married Woman. Beauvoir dedicated her studies to the imbalance in gender roles clearly depicting women as a victim of marriage. Today’s society has shifted to become more accepting of Gay marriage with 55% of Americans favoring the union between same sex couples (Wall Street Journal, Legal Patchwork). Are gay couples subject to the same disconsolate marriages Beauvoir illustrates for heterosexual couples? This essay will identify if Beauvoir’s theories relate to gay marriage and if “the second sex” exists within a same sex marriage.
Beauvoir’s thesis in The Married Woman revolves around women characterization and inferior nature oppressed by men in a marriage opening her piece comparing housework to “the torture of Sisyphus” (380). Using imagery and descriptive language, Beauvoir describes the expected duties of a women forced up by her husband as she is in “war against dust, stains, mud, and dirt she is fighting sin, wresting with Satan” (381). Beauvoir believes that the sanctity of marriage lies only in the males supremacy of women, as women are “temped—and the more so the greater pains she takes—to regard her work as an end in itself” (382). This comparison depicts marriage as a waste of life, rather than devoting “time and effort in such striving for originality and unique perfection” (382); the woman succumbs to marriage and housework. Beauvoir truly believed her ideology of marriage and lived her life accordingly to her death in 1986. Simone de Beauvoir’s account of marriage as scrupulous, demeaning, and “sadomasochistic” (381), repres...
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... shared by both in the relationship, as each individual shares a respect and accept a harmonious equality of work. Gay couples have a chance to reinstitute Beauvoir’s belief of marriage, as the ‘second sex’ doesn’t exist and each partner are held to the same standards.
Works Cited
Chapman, W. (1981). A model of student college choice. 52(5), 490-505.
"Is There Always a ‘Man’ and a ‘Woman’ In Sexual Relationships? Even When
It’s a Gay One?" Queerty. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Feb. 2014.
"The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights." The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Feb. 2014.
"Legal Patchwork." The Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones & Company, 21 Oct. 2013. Web. 20 Feb. 2014.
"Marriage and Divorce." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 21 Nov. 2013. Web. 18 Feb. 2014
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