At 21, Siome de Beauvoir was the youngest to pass France’s aggregation in philosophy, a post-graduate exam where she placed second only to Jean-Paul Sartre. She had completed her thesis in one year while Sartre took three and even then some examiners thought her the better philosopher. She studied literature and mathematics at the Sorbonne while following the curriculum at the boys-only École Normale (this was in the 1920’s), unofficially sitting in at classes.
They started as study partners. And this was the bastion their life-long love was built on. They were intellectual equals. He published the canon on existentialism, she read and edited his books. He had always been more-widely read and translated and she was seen as his disciple, but her student diaries show she formed her own existential ideas – she decided she was an atheist at 14 despite a very Catholic childhood, was already reading Kant and Plato, and contemplating philosophies – before meeting Sartre.
One day in 1929 by the Carrousel du Louvre, he proposed marriage. She decided on a unique contract of love instead, sexual but not exclusive. They agreed to an open relationship and promised to always be honest with each other about every affair. It was part of their existential experiment – to reject all absolutes and predestinations and live a life of your own free will.
What Sartre lacked in height and handsomeness, he made up for with the sheer force of his deep intellect and restless seductions. What de Beauvoir lacked in power as a woman, she took by sheer force in the same exact ways and broke apart a patriarchal ideology in 1930’s France. Back then and still now, extramarital affairs have been accepted as a male prerogative. Well de Beauvoir did not accept any less for herself. She took on both male and female lovers, sometimes even sharing Sartre’s.
They were deep thinkers and avid partiers. Even during the Paris Occupation, they held court for friends in their apartments, binging on love and alcohol through the night. The next day, they would take amphetamines to cure hangovers and heartaches.
Though they never lived together, they met almost daily at cafés to discuss their writing, their ambitions, their opinions and their lovers. It was part of their pact to tell each other everything. Their sexual relationship pretty much ended soon after the war, but they kept up the telling of every encounter they had. In letters to each other, they described every sensous detail, from the seduction to the sex, the lies and promises told in pursuit, the tastes and outlines of their lovers’ bodies, the sounds made in ecstacy.
They were prolific letter writers, and volumes have been published posthumously, exposing some of their more exploitative affairs with the women they passed between them. It was customary for them to mentor and support a young woman and then sleep with her. Part of what made their relationship so unique is not their polyamourous affairs, but that the voyeuristic nature of these affairs took on such importance and actually excited them.
Their public open relationship was shunned by some high society who thought it indecent. That she agreed to live their lives this way surprises everyone, especially because she was brilliant and too beautiful. Some even insist it was all her idea. While teaching at the lycée, she would seduce her own students before passing them on to Sartre. One such triangle was described in She Came to Stay in almost autobiographical details.
She would temporarily lose her teaching license for this, further proof that considered norms for male professors do not extend to their female counterparts. No matter, in 1943, she quit teaching altogether and was able to support herself solely from writing. Work and independence was something she championed for women, and that she could make a living as a writer back then was an achievement on its own.
Privately, de Beauvoir suffered greatly from jealousy. While Sartre insisted love affairs gave way to new experiences and she agreed, she would sometimes convince him to end certain affairs. And then they would continue on, both believing that other people provide context to our lives and we are much more enriched by encounters with different people.
Her affairs though not as many, lasted longer and were certainly more deeply effectual. To Sartre, it was sometimes a game of pursuit and conquest. She was never into casual sex, but sought out more intense love affairs. She was the superior emotionally. And some believe (as I do) even intellectually.
Sartre was always viewed as the greater philosopher and their male contemporaries didn’t treat her as an equal, but in their 51 years together, he never published anything without her advice. In interviews, she was always well-versed on all of Sartre’s works and ideas and it will later surface just how much input – and even disagreement – she had on his work.
In 1949, her seminal book The Second Sex was published. It lay the intellectual groundwork for the feminist movement that exploded in the 60’s. It was often banned for promoting lesbianism, and for its graphic descriptions of female biology. Her refusal to get married and her breakdown of female roles are still criticized. And much of her writing was either meagerly translated or not at all until later.
In interviews she often had to fend off questions about her relationships rather than her writing. This even after her own essays on existentialism were published, most notably The Ethics of Ambiguity (1944). Unfortunately, the eroticism of her life overshadowed her academic achievements. Ironic for someone who didn’t believe that a woman’s value should have everything to do with sex, and who herself was brilliant beyond words. It was not until after her death that her many contributions to philosophy, existentialism, and to Sartre’s work came to light. In her lifetime, everyone commented on how much he influenced her work. It could have been just the opposite.
She has always been my literary heroine, setting her vision of the world and living the life she wanted. She broke down conventions on what a woman can and cannot do and what a woman can and cannot think. What a mind.. and I love her most for that.
