“ Woman frees herself from her chains in her autumn and winter years; she uses the pretext of her age to escape burdensome chores; she knows her husband too well to let herself still be intimidated by him, she avoids his embraces, she carves out—in friendship, indifference, or hostility—a real life of her own alongside him; if he declines more quickly than she, she takes the lead in the couple. ”
 Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (1949). copy citation