The Second Sex

by Simone de Beauvoir

  And yet Evil needs Good, matter needs the idea, and night needs light. Man knows that to satisfy his desires, to perpetuate his existence, woman is indispensable to him; he has to integrate her in society: as long as she submits to the order established by males, she is cleansed of her original stain. This idea is forcefully expressed in the Laws of Manu: “Whatever be the qualities of the man with whom a woman is united according to the law, such qualities even she assumes, like a river united with the ocean, and she is admitted after death to the same celestial paradise.” The Bible too praises the “virtuous woman.” Christianity, in spite of its loathing of the flesh, respects the devoted virgin and the chaste and docile wife. Within a religious group, woman can even hold an important religious position: Brahmani in India and Flaminica in Rome are as holy as their husbands; in a couple, the man is dominant, but both male and female principles remain essential to the childbearing function, to life, and to the social order.

  This very ambivalence of the Other, of the Female, will be reflected in the rest of her history; until our times she will be subordinated to men’s will. But this will is ambiguous: by total annexation, woman will be lowered to the rank of a thing; of course, man attempts to cover with his own dignity what he conquers and possesses; in his eyes the Other retains some of her primitive magic; one of the problems he will seek to solve is how to make his wife both a servant and a companion; his attitude will evolve throughout the centuries, and this will also entail an evolution in woman’s destiny.11

  1. “Hail, Earth, mother of all men, may you be fertile in the arms of God and filled with fruits for the use of man,” says an old Anglo-Saxon incantation.

  2. For the Bhantas of India, or in Uganda, a sterile woman is considered dangerous for gardens. In Nicobar, it is believed that the harvest will be better if it is brought in by a pregnant woman. In Borneo, seeds are chosen and preserved by women. “One seems to feel in women a natural affinity with the seeds that are said by the women to be in a state of pregnancy. Sometimes women will spend the night in the rice fields during its growth period” (Hose and MacDougall). In India of yore, naked women pushed the plow through the field at night. Indians along the Orinoco left the sowing and planting to women because “women knew how to conceive seed and bear children, so the seeds and roots planted by them bore fruit far more abundantly than if they had been planted by male hands” (Frazer). Many similar examples can be found in Frazer.

  3. It will be seen that this distinction has been perpetuated. Periods that regard woman as Other are those that refuse most harshly to integrate her into society as a human being. Today she only becomes an other peer by losing her mystical aura. Antifeminists have always played on this ambiguity. They readily agree to exalt the woman as Other in order to make her alterity absolute and irreducible, and to refuse her access to the human Mitsein.

  4. Lévi-Strauss, The Elementary Structures of Kinship.

  5. Ibid.

  6. In Lévi-Strauss’s thesis already cited, there is, in a slightly different form, a confirmation of this idea. What comes out of this study is that the prohibition of incest is in no way the primal factor underlying exogamy; but it reflects the positive desire for exogamy in a negative form. There is no intrinsic reason that it be improper for a woman to have intercourse with men in her clan; but it is socially useful that she be part of the goods by which each clan, instead of closing in on itself, establishes a reciprocal relationship with another clan: “Exogamy has a value less negative than positive … it prohibits endogamous marriage … certainly not because a biological danger is attached to consanguineous marriage, but because exogamous marriage results in a social benefit.” The group should not for its own private purposes consume women who constitute one of its possessions, but should use them as an instrument of communication; if marriage with a woman of the same clan is forbidden, “the sole reason is that she is same whereas she must (and therefore can) become other … the same women that were originally offered can be exchanged in return. All that is necessary on either side is the sign of otherness, which is the outcome of a certain position in a structure and not of any innate characteristic.”

  7. Of course, this condition is necessary but not sufficient: there are patrilineal civilizations immobilized in a primitive stage; others, like the Mayas, regressed. There is no absolute hierarchy between societies of maternal right and those of paternal right: but only the latter have evolved technically and ideologically.

  8. It is interesting to note (according to H. Bégouën, Journal of Psychology, 1934) that in the Aurignacian period there were numerous statuettes representing women with overly emphasized sexual attributes: they are noteworthy for their plumpness and the size accorded to their vulvas. Moreover, grossly sketched vulvas on their own were also found in caves. In the Solutrean and Magdalenian epochs, these effigies disappear. In the Aurignacian, masculine statuettes are very rare, and there are never any representations of the male organ. In the Magdalenian epoch, some representations of vulvas are still found, though in small quantities, but a great quantity of phalluses was discovered.

  9. See Part One, Chapter 3, in this volume.

  10. In the same way that woman was identified with furrows, the phallus was identified with the plow, and vice versa. In a drawing representing a plow from the Kassite period, there are traces of the symbols of the generative act; afterward, the phallus-plow identity was frequently reproduced in art forms. The word lak in some Austro-Asian languages designates both phallus and plow. An Assyrian prayer addresses a god whose “plow fertilized the earth.”

  11. We will examine this evolution in the Western world. The history of the woman in the East, in India, and in China was one of long and immutable slavery. From the Middle Ages to today, we will center this study on France, where the situation is typical.

  | CHAPTER 3 |

  Once woman is dethroned by the advent of private property, her fate is linked to it for centuries: in large part, her history is intertwined with the history of inheritance. The fundamental importance of this institution becomes clear if we keep in mind that the owner alienated his existence in property; it was more important to him than life itself; it goes beyond the strict limits of a mortal lifetime, it lives on after the body is gone, an earthly and tangible incarnation of the immortal soul; but this continued survival can occur only if property remains in the owner’s hands: it can remain his after death only if it belongs to individuals who are extensions of himself and recognized, who are his own. Cultivating paternal lands and worshipping the father’s spirit are one and the same obligation for the heir: to ensure the survival of ancestors on earth and in the underworld. Man will not, therefore, agree to share his property or his children with woman. He will never really be able to go that far, but at a time when patriarchy is powerful, he strips woman of all her rights to hold and transmit property. It seems logical, in fact, to deny her these rights. If it is accepted that a woman’s children do not belong to her, they inevitably have no link with the group the woman comes from. Woman is no longer passed from one clan to another through marriage: she is radically abducted from the group she is born into and annexed to her husband’s; he buys her like a head of cattle or a slave, he imposes his domestic divinities on her: and the children she conceives belong to her spouse’s family. If she could inherit, she would thus wrongly transmit her paternal family’s riches to that of her husband: she is carefully excluded from the succession. But inversely, because she owns nothing, woman is not raised to the dignity of a person; she herself is part of man’s patrimony, first her father’s and then her husband’s. Under a strictly patriarchal regime, a father can condemn to death his male and female children at birth; but in the case of a male child, society most often put limits on this power: a normally constituted newborn male is allowed to live, whereas the custom of exposure is very widespread for girls; there was massive infanticide among Arabs: as soon as they were born, girls were thrown into ditches. Accepting a female child is an act
of generosity on the father’s part; the woman enters such societies only through a kind of grace bestowed on her, and not legitimately like males. In any case, the stain of birth is far more serious for the mother when a girl is born: among Hebrews, Leviticus demands twice as much cleansing as for a newborn boy. In societies where “blood money” exists, only a small sum is required when the victim is of the feminine sex: her value compared with a male’s is like a slave’s with a free man’s. When she is a young girl, the father has total power over her; on her marriage he transmits it entirely to her spouse. Since she is his property like the slave, the beast of burden, or the thing, it is natural for a man to have as many wives as he wishes; only economic reasons put limits on polygamy; the husband can disown his wives at whim, and society barely accords them any guarantees. In return, woman is subjected to rigorous chastity. In spite of the taboos, matriarchal societies allow great freedom of behavior; prenuptial chastity is rarely demanded; and adultery not judged severely. On the contrary, when woman becomes man’s property, he wants a virgin, and he demands total fidelity at the risk of severe penalty; it would be the worst of crimes to risk giving heritage rights to a foreign offspring: this is why the paterfamilias has the right to put a guilty wife to death. As long as private property lasts, conjugal infidelity on the part of a woman is considered a crime of high treason. All codes up to our time have perpetuated inequality in issues concerning adultery, arguing the seriousness of the fault committed by the woman who might bring an illegitimate child into the family. And though the right to take the law into one’s own hands has been abolished since Augustus, the Napoleonic Code still holds out the promise of the jury’s leniency for a husband who avenges himself. When woman belonged to both a patrilineal clan and a conjugal family, she was able to preserve a good amount of freedom, as the two series of bonds overlapped and even conflicted with each other and as each system served to support her against the other: for example, she could often choose the husband of her fancy, since marriage was only a secular event and had no effect on society’s deep structure. But under the patriarchal regime, she was the property of a father who married her off as he saw fit; then attached to her husband’s household, she was no more than his thing and the thing of the family (genos) in which she was placed.

  When family and private patrimony incontestably remain the bases of society, woman also remains totally alienated. This is what has happened in the Muslim world. The structure is feudal in that there has never been a state strong enough to unify and dominate the numerous tribes: no power holds in check that of the patriarch chief. The religion that was created when the Arab people were warriors and conquerors professed the utmost disdain toward women. “Men are superior to women on account of the qualities with which God has gifted the one above the other, and on account of the outlay they make from their substance for them,” says the Koran; the woman has never held real power or mystic prestige. The bedouin woman works hard, she plows and carries burdens: this is how she sets up a reciprocal bond with her husband; she moves around freely, her face uncovered. The Muslim woman, veiled and shut in, is still today a kind of slave in most levels of society. I recall an underground cave in a troglodyte village in Tunisia where four women were squatting: the old, one-eyed, and toothless wife, her face ravaged, was cooking dough on a small brazier surrounded by acrid smoke; two slightly younger but equally disfigured wives were rocking children in their arms; one was breastfeeding; seated before a weaver’s loom was a young idol, magnificently dressed in silk, gold, and silver, knotting strands of wool. Leaving this gloomy den—realm of immanence, womb, and tomb—in the corridor leading up toward the light, I met the male, dressed in white, sparklingly clean, smiling, sunny. He was returning from the market, where he had bantered about world affairs with other men; he would spend a few hours in this retreat of his own, in the heart of this vast universe to which he belonged and from which he was not separated. For the old withered creatures, for the young bride doomed to the same degeneration, there was no other universe but the murky cave from which they would emerge only at night, silent and veiled.

  The Jews of biblical times have more or less the same customs as the Arabs. The patriarchs are polygamous and can renounce their wives almost at whim; at the risk of harsh punishment, the young bride has to be delivered to her spouse as a virgin; in cases of adultery, she is stoned; she is confined to domestic labor, as the image of virtuous women demonstrates: “She seeketh wool and flax … she riseth also while it is yet night … her candle goeth not off at night … she eateth not the bread of idleness.” Even chaste and industrious, she is impure and burdened with taboos; she cannot testify in court. Ecclesiastes treats her with the deepest disgust: “And I find more bitter than death the woman, whose heart is snares and nets, and her hands as bands … one man among a thousand have I found; but a woman among all those have I not found.” When her husband dies, custom and even law require her to marry a brother of the deceased.

  This custom called levirate is found among many Oriental peoples. In all regimes where woman is under guardianship, one of the problems is what to do with widows. The most radical solution is to sacrifice them on their husbands’ tombs. But it is not true that even in India the law imposes such holocausts; the Laws of Manu permit a wife to survive a husband; spectacular suicides have never been more than an aristocratic fashion. It is far more frequent for the widow to be handed over to her husband’s heirs. The levirate sometimes takes the form of polyandry; to avoid the ambiguities of widowhood, all the brothers in the family become the husbands of the woman, a custom that serves to preserve the clan against the possible infertility of the husband. According to a text of Caesar’s, in Brittany all the men of one family had a certain number of women in common.

  This form of radical patriarchy was not established everywhere. In Babylon, Hammurabi’s Code recognized certain rights of woman: she receives a share of the paternal inheritance, and when she marries, her father provides her with a dowry. In Persia, polygamy is customary; woman is bound to absolute obedience to the husband her father chooses for her as soon as she is nubile; but she is more respected than among most Oriental peoples; incest is not forbidden, and marriage takes place frequently among sisters and brothers; she is in charge of educating the children up to the age of seven for boys and until marriage for girls. Woman can share in her husband’s estate if the son proves himself unworthy; if she is a “privileged wife,” she is entrusted with the guardianship of minor children in the case of her husband’s death and with the business management in the absence of an adult son. The rules of marriage clearly point out the importance posterity has for the head of a family. It is likely that there were five forms of marriage:1 (1) The woman married with the consent of her parents; she was then called the “privileged wife”; her children belonged to her husband. (2) When the woman was an only child, her firstborn would be given up to her parents to replace their daughter; then she would become a “privileged wife.” (3) If a man died unmarried, his family would take a woman from outside, give her a dowry, and marry her: she was called an “adopted wife”; half of her children belonged to the deceased and the other half to the living husband. (4) A widow without children who remarried was called a servant wife: she owed half of the children of her second marriage to her deceased husband. (5) The woman who married without the consent of her parents could not inherit from them until the oldest son, coming of age, would give her to his father as a “privileged wife”; if her husband died before, she was considered a minor and put under guardianship. The status of the adopted wife and the servant wife establishes the right of every man to be survived by descendants who are not necessarily connected by a blood relationship. This confirms what was said above; this relationship was in a way invented by man when he sought to annex for himself—beyond his finite life—immortality in this world and in the underworld.

  In Egypt, woman’s condition was the most favorable. When Goddess Mothers married, they maintained their s
tanding; social and religious unity resides in the couple; woman is an ally, a complement to man. Her magic is so unthreatening that even the fear of incest is overcome, and no differentiation is made between a sister and a spouse.2 She has the same rights as men, the same legal power; she inherits, and she owns property. This uniquely fortunate situation is in no way haphazard: it stems from the fact that in ancient Egypt the land belonged to the king and the higher castes of priests and warriors; for private individuals, landed property was only usufructuary; the land was inalienable, property transmitted by inheritance had little value, and there was no problem about sharing it. Because of this absence of personal patrimony, woman maintained the dignity of a person. She married whom she wanted, and as a widow she could remarry as she wished. The male practiced polygamy, but although all of his children were legitimate, he had only one real wife, the only one associated with religion and linked to him legally: the others were mere slaves, deprived of all rights. The chief wife did not change status by marrying: she remained mistress of her possessions and was free to engage in contracts. When the pharaoh Bocchoris established private property, woman’s position was too strong to be dislodged; Bocchoris opened the era of contracts, and marriage itself became contractual. There were three types of contracts: one dealt with servile marriage; woman became man’s thing, but she could specify that he would not have a concubine other than her; nonetheless, the legal spouse was considered equal to man, and all their property was held in common; the husband would often agree to pay her a sum of money in the case of divorce. Later, this custom led to a type of contract remarkably favorable to women; the husband agreed to absolve her of her debt. There were serious punishments for adultery, but divorce was fairly open for the two spouses. The presence of contracts soundly restrained polygamy; women got possession of the wealth and transmitted it to their children, which brought about the creation of a plutocratic class. Ptolemy Philopator decreed that women could no longer alienate their property without marital authorization, which kept them as eternal minors. But even in times when they had a privileged status, unique in the ancient world, they were not socially equal to men; taking part in religion and government, they could have the role of regent, but the pharaoh was male; priests and warriors were males; woman’s role in public life was a secondary one; and in private life, fidelity was required of her without reciprocity.