This line breaks down the emotional and societal dependency women have been conditioned to understand. Womanhood itself is defined in relational terms of what are your prospects to being a good wife and never autonomous like being independent or self sufficient. To live “bereft” is an unbearable state, to be permanently robbed of. It makes people sad and lonely, but that comes from a place of conditioning and beliefs that their purpose and self is tied to the person they married that without them they are devoid of all good things.