| Jun. 23rd, 2008 @ 03:01 pm Genuine Love |
|---|
Current Mood:  pleased
Genuine Love
In an excerpt from her book The Second Sex Simone de Beauvoir expresses what she believes is genuine love and why it is never achieved. She claims that genuine love is the love between two people who understand that they are two individuals but that feel a connection that is almost as sharing the same identity. Neither person in the relationship wants complete control of the relationship or of the other person because there is mutual respect for the other person as an individual. Consequently neither belittles the other and allows the person he or she loves to transcend. In this way both grow as people and become subjects, as in they both are able to have independent lives from each other and no one is living to serve the other. However, de Beauvoir claims that genuine love is never achieved because women are socialized to see men as gods and thus live to serve them while men accepts this behavior from women "only on condition that [they] need not satisfy the reciprocal demands these attitudes imply." What this means according to de Beauvoir is that while men continue to accept this servitude from women genuine love will never be achieved. Thus women will continue serving men unconditionally and continue being the second sex, the ones that do not have an independent life but that are dependent on men and that live through them.
I find de Beauvoir's conception of genuine love to be correct. I agree with her definition of genuine love as being the state in which the couple comes to see each other as individuals and not as one person all the time. Many people tend to believe that when one is in love one should become lost in the other person and become one with this loved one, however, that will mean losing our personality and the things one likes. No two individuals think exactly alike and if one begins to agree with the loved person on everything then on is the master and the other the slave. The one in control will enjoy having the control of the other but will not really love the person for love is not only doing things for the other but respect. If one is serving the other this only expresses fear and dependence for the other person. The slave, which in most cases is a woman, does things for the master, the man, for fear that he will leave her and with him her dreams of being swept off her feet and rescued like Cinderella by Prince Charming. The woman becomes so dependent on the man that she forgets that she is a person too and lives only to serve him and sees what he wants her to see like de Beauvoir states. The master will find that he does not need to do anything for the slave, woman, that loves him will accept that he will not give her anything and she will be unhappy, but will think this is how things are and her dependence on him will grow. And with this dependence on him he holds her in his hands and can destroy her by leaving her, for example. While it may seem that the man or master in the relationship will be content with not having to reciprocate the behavior he is receiving from his lover, he is not truly happy for anything he asks for is given and that becomes boring. Thus neither men nor women are happy in a relationship where there is no respect and one is living through the other. But if both people in a relationship understand that they are two individuals coming together because of love and not to depend on the other and respect each other's right to have their own life then genuine love will be achieved. Only with respect will people be truly happy in a relationship were they are not fighting for control over the other.
With social norms changing for women in our society women are becoming much more independent and are thus not looking for marriage as much as in past decades. I say this because I have seen this with people I have met. I knew this woman who had been a single woman for twelve years and was successful in her career. She decided to get married and months later she divorced her husband. What I see in contemporary society is that women want to be independent and do not want to serve men but want men to accept them as equals and when this does not happen then they do not conform as before. Women are now looking for this genuine love that Simone de Beauvoir writes about. However, I still see women in relationships where they are slaves to their significant other. This means that just like de Beauvoir claims genuine love will never be achieved while both people in a relationship do not see each other as two equals who have independent lives and that neither one has to be in control, but that both need to be able to transcend and not hold the other down by having a relationship based on one being the master and the other the slave. |
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
lapinzon's journal
