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It was said that I refused to grant any value to the maternal instinct and to love. This was not so. I simply asked that women should experience them truthfully and freely, whereas they often use them as excuses and take refuge in them, only to find themselves imprisoned in that refuge when those emotions have dried up in their hearts. I was accused of preaching sexual promiscuity; but at no point did I ever advise anyone to sleep with just anyone at just any time; my opinion on this subject is that all choices, agreements and refusals should be made independently of institutions, conventions and motives of self-aggrandizement; if the reasons for it are not of the same order as the act itself, then the only result can be lies, distortions and mutilations.

Simone De Beauvoir#3

FreedomLoveInstitutions

About this quote

What does it mean?
Women should experience love and maternity freely, not as institutional traps that limit autonomy.
In plain terms
Experience love freely, not as an excuse to be trapped.
What can you take from it?
Love should free, not imprison.

Where it applies

  • relationships
  • parenthood
  • feminist critique

Putting it to work

  • choose love freely
  • reject institutional traps

Questions to consider

  • How do institutions trap emotions?
  • How to love freely?

Another view

Institutions can support rather than imprison.

More from Simone De Beauvoir

  1. The Communists, following Hegel, speak of humanity and its future as of some monolithic individuality. I was attacking this illusion.

    Permalink to quote #2
  2. Self-knowledge is no guarantee of happiness, but it is on the side of happiness and can supply the courage to fight for it. Psychiatrists have told me that the…

    Permalink to quote #4
  3. I wish that every human life might be pure transparent freedom.

    Permalink to quote #1

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