Woman has a dangerous rapport with finitude in a way quite different
from man. She is, as The Seducer says, a mystification (see "The
Banquet"); there is a moment in her life when she deceptively appears to
be infinitude itself - and that is when man is captured. And as a wife
she is quite simply - finitude.
- What the judge in the second part of "Either/Or" says in his way about
women is to be expected from a married man who, ethically inspired,
champions marriage.
Woman could be called "the lust for life." There is undoubtedly lust for
life in man, but essentially he is structured to be spirit, and if he
were alone, left all alone to himself, he would not know (here the judge
is right) how to begin, and he would never really get around to
beginning.
But then "the lust for life," which is within him indefinitely, becomes
manifest to him externally in another form, in the form of woman, who is
the lust for life: and now the lust for life awakens.
Likewise, what is said by The Seducer (in "The Banquet") about woman
being bait is very true. And strange as it may seem, it is nevertheless
a fact that the very thing which makes the seducer so demonic and makes
it hard for any poet to contrive such a character is that in the form of
knowledge he has at his disposal the whole Christian ascetic view of
woman - except that he employs it in his own way. He has knowledge in
common with the ascetic, the hermit, but they take off from this
knowledge in a completely different direction.
- Woman is personified egotism. Her fervent, burning devotion to man is
neither more nor less than her egotism.
But His Honor, Man, has no inkling of this; he considers himself very
lucky and feels highly flattered to be th
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