In 1946, Simone de Beauvoir began to outline what she thoughtwould be an autobiographical essay explaining why, when she hadtried to define herself, the first sentence that came to mind was “I am awoman.” That October, my maiden aunt, Beauvoir’s contemporary,came to visit me in the hospital nursery. I was a day old, and shefound a little tag on my bassinet that announced, “It’s a Girl!” In thenext bassinet was another newborn (“a lot punier,” she recalled),whose little tag announced, “I’m a Boy!” There we lay, innocent of adistinction—between a female object and a male subject—that wouldshape our destinies. It would also shape Beauvoir’s great treatise onthe subject.
But the more the girl matures, the more maternal authority weighs on her. If she leads a housekeepers life at home, she suffers from being only an assistant; she would like to devote her work to her own home, to her own children. Often the rivalry with her mother worsens: in particular, the older daughter is irritated if younger brothers and sisters are born; she feels her mother has done her time, and it is up to her now to bear children, to reign. If she works outside the house, she suffers when she returns home from still being treated as a simple member of the family and not as an autonomous individual.
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Less romantic than before, she begins to think much more of marriage than love. She no longer embellishes her future spouse with a prestigious halo: what she wishes for is to have a stable position in this world and to begin to lead her life as a woman. This is how Virginia Woolf describes the imaginings of a rich country girl: For soon in the hot midday when the bees hum round the hollyhocks my lover will come. He will stand under the cedar tree. To his one word I shall answer my one word. What has formed in me I shall give him. I shall have children; I shall have maids in aprons; men with pitchforks; a kitchen where they bring the ailing lambs to warm in baskets, where the hams hang and the onions glisten. I shall be like my mother, silent in a blue apron locking up the cupboards. 437
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A similar dream dwells in poor Prue Sarn: It seemed such a terrible thing never to marry. All girls got married And when girls got married, they had a cottage, and a lamp, maybe, to light when their man came home, or if it was only candles it was all one, for they could put them in the window, and hed think Theres my missus now, lit the candles! And then one day Mrs. Beguildy would be making a cot of rushes for em, and one day thered be a babe in it, grand and solemn, and bidding letters sent round for the christening, and the neighbours coming round the babes mother like bees round the queen. Often when things went wrong, Id say to myself, Neer mind, Prue Sarn! Therell come a day when youll be queen in your own skep.19
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For most older girls, whether they have a laborious or frivolous life, whether they be confined to the paternal household or partially get away from it, the conquest of a husbandor at the least a serious loverturns into a more and more pressing enterprise. This concern is often harmful for feminine friendships. The best friend loses her privileged place. The girl sees rivals more than partners in her companions. I knew one such girl, intelligent and talented but who had chosen to think herself a faraway princess: this is how she described herself in poems and literary essays; she sincerely admitted she did not remain attached to her childhood friends: if they were ugly and stupid, she did not like them; if seductive, she feared them. The impatient wait for a man, often involving maneuvers, ruses, and humiliations, blocks the girls horizon; she becomes egotistical and hard. And if Prince Charming takes his time ap
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