Commentary for Kiddushin 68:4
ואדילפינן מתפילין לפטורא נילף משמחה לחיובא אמר אביי אשה בעלה משמחה
thus excluding women; but otherwise women would be liable? - It is necessary: I would have thought, we learn the meaning of 'appearance' from 'assembling'.<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' 'Appearance' is mentioned in both cases. Pilgrimage, as quoted in last note; assembling, Deut. XXXI, 11f: when all Israel is come to appear before the Lord thy God. . assemble the people, men and women, etc.');"><sup>5</sup></span> Now, instead of deriving an exemption from phylacteries, let us deduce an obligation from [the precept of] rejoicing?<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' That too is occasioned by the Season, yet is obligatory upon women; v. Deut. XVI, 14.');"><sup>6</sup></span>
Daf Shevui to Kiddushin
Abaye essentially exempts women from an independent commandment to rejoice on the festival. The husband is obligated to make her happy, but she herself is not obligated to rejoice. If she is a widow, then those men who are accompanying her (chaperones?) are obligated to make her happy.
As a side note, we can see here the development of a rule. The rule that women are exempt from positive time-bound commandments was originally descriptive and prescriptive. It, for the most part, was an accurate description of what mitzvoth women are obligated in. But by Abaye’s time it becomes prescriptive, for after all, rules are not really rules if they have exceptions. Abaye uses the rule to exempt women from a mitzvah they were previously obligated in.