jealousy has been subjected to the distortion which every sexual manifestation suffers under the influence of our modern puritanical civilisation. it has to be concealed and lied about and derives from that fact an immense obsessional power. it becomes a mask for other feelings and, in its turn, may masquerade in the guise of other feelings.
both its presence and its absence may denote normality or abnormality. intense jealousy may be the projection of our feelings into another individual and be a symptom of paranoia. on the other hand, the entire lack of jealousy of a husband who enjoys the sight of his wife caressed by another man, certainly reveals a most morbid masochism.
hunger, thirst, erotism always find their satisfaction at some time. intense pain deadens itself thru its very intensity. jealousy on the contrary feeds on itself. it can be aroused by the unseen as well as by the obvious. in fact, like many neurotic[pg 134] elements, it thrives best on the invisible and the unreal.
jealousy based upon unseen things, hunches, intuition, borders dangerously on hallucinatory states. the absolute blindness of some husbands, on the other hand, reveals a form of egotistical cocksureness closely allied to delusions of greatness.
rules for husbands. forel, in some ways very old fashioned and unimaginative, has summarised as follows the proper rules of conduct for "reasonable husbands" suffering from jealousy.
"an intelligent husband," he writes, "should quietly find out thru the usual agencies whether his suspicions are justified or not. for what is the use of being jealous? if his suspicions are unfounded, he can only annoy his wife and make her unhappy thru his jealous behavior. if he was right in suspecting her, there is only one of two things to be done: either an otherwise excellent wife has yielded to the attraction of another man and may feel perfectly miserable over it. she should be forgiven and led back into the right path. or a wife has no affection left for her husband or she is an unworthy, characterless deceiver, and in such cases, what is needed is not jealousy but a divorce."
instead of "reasonable" husbands, forel should[pg 135] have written, husbands "free from complexes," for jealousy is little besides a neurotic mask for an unrecognized feeling of inferiority.
there are thousands of husbands who would not dare to find out whether their wives are untrue or not. some may be so enslaved to their wives' bodies that they cannot contemplate the possibility of losing them.
public opinion, if a scandal should break out, would compel them to seek a divorce and therefore they prefer to remain in ignorance of the real state of affairs and of their "defeat."
others are so egotistical that they refuse to suspect their wives of infidelity and are honestly trying to protect their wife's reputation when they make a jealous scene. this is frequently observed among the "after-me-who-has-a-chance?" type of husband.
other egotists fear the ridicule that might follow upon exposure and which might destroy some of their self confidence. they would be too weak to bear up well under their friends' open or concealed sarcasm.
the jealous scenes they make to their suspected wives are in the nature of a punishment which they inflict on the faithless one.
other husbands, entangled in extramatrimonial[pg 136] affairs, are in no way desirous to create a scandal but work themselves into jealous moods to keep up a pretence of interest in their wives.
others, very old fashioned, believe in a double standard and, while condoning their own weaknesses, condemn every appearance of evil in "their" wives.
very few men or women admit their jealousy. most of them cover it with ethical veils of the most transparent type: "you neglect your household," "you are a poor mother (or father) to your children," "you are making yourself (or me) ridiculous," etc.
some husbands deny they are jealous but declaim against low neck gowns, flesh-colored stockings, face powder, rouge, lip sticks to which they object on "moral grounds."
the last two groups derive a great comfort from their assumed ethical and moral superiority which they use as a justification for their endless nagging.
some jealous husbands force motherhood upon their wives year after year as a protection against unfaithfulness. a woman disabled by pregnancy and lactation is, of necessity, more faithful. attempts at freedom on the part of a woman burdened with a numerous progeny can easily be repressed by admonitions such as "remember the children," etc.
[pg 137]
jealousy and impotence. jealousy in a man is often caused by the fact that he has become impotent. unable to gratify his wife physically, he imagines that she seeks consolation elsewhere and in that way he "gets even" with her: "i am impotent but she is promiscuous," so runs the neurotic's logic.
not infrequently a woman who has been brought up to consider physical relations as slightly shameful and something which a well brought up female submits to, but never "enjoys," may, if she is very erotic, develop terrible fits of jealousy.
frink, mentioning one of those rather frequent cases, dissects the psychology of that type of jealous women as follows: "if her husband's caresses leave her unsatisfied, she is caught between the two horns of a dilemma. if she grants that this is enough to satisfy her husband's 'animal instincts' she must then admit that she is more erotic than he is, hence, more 'animal' than he. and such an admission is impossible to a woman of puritanical upbringing. hence 'logically' she concludes that he must be untrue to her."
frink adds: "undue jealousy in a man usually means that he has, or thinks he has, some deficiency of sexual power. it means in a woman, not, as[pg 138] many seem to think, that she is unusually in love with her husband, but rather, that she is not perfectly satisfied with him, and often that she thinks that if he really knew her, he would not be satisfied with her. in most patients suffering from morbid jealousy there is an overaccentuation of the homosexual component of the libido."
very often some unattractive individual feels jealous because he or she has ceased to attract sexually his or her life mate.
a neurotic, whose face had been made hideous by a discoloration due to illness, was sure his wife must have a lover, because she no longer seemed to feel erotic in his company. his way of reasoning was as follows: "i cannot disgust her, hence some one else must attract her."
childish behavior. some neurotics with a strong father or mother fixation become jealous of an otherwise perfectly faithful and devoted mate because they fail to receive from their husband or wife, the sort of attention and uncritical devotion they would expect from a parent. those people are still children who never admit the possibility of adult equality between them and their mate. the mate must be the strong father or the self-sacrificing mother. they themselves remain ba[pg 139]bies, constantly to be petted, admired and consoled. if their husband or wife fails to shower on them the thousand little attentions which a nursling requires, they fly into a petty and unjustified rage, suspecting that some one else has robbed them of their privileges.
the don juan and the messalina are quite as jealous as faithful mates. men leading a double life may watch wife and mistress with equal suspicion. this is probably due to the fact that they feel unable to satisfy both women sexually. orientals with a harem are said to be infinitely more tigerish in their jealousy than western men of the most monogamous type. i have known several married women who, altho they had deceived their husbands on several occasions, were terribly upset when their husbands showed too much interest in some other woman.
the ego rampant. the proprietor of a hotel in a western town, who lived a few blocks from his inn, was annoyed when his wife refused more and more frequently to come and keep him company at the hotel in the evenings.
when a young lawyer took up his residence at the hotel, however, she never failed to put in an appearance, regardless of the weather or of her[pg 140] health, which she had used so often as excuses for staying at home.
later on, detectives supplied him with enough grounds to secure a divorce. curiously enough, what brought forth the greatest display of anger on his part when he recalled the incident, was not the thought of the caresses which his wife and the other man may have exchanged. his humiliation was indescribable when he realised that the other man had wielded more influence upon his wife than he had himself. "one night," he said to me, "when she came down thru a heavy snowstorm, just to see him, i could have killed her."
sexless jealousy. all the foregoing tends to show that jealousy has very little to do with sex. many domestic animals evince violent jealousy when their masters show attentions to strange animals. a feud may be precipitated among the household pets when the dog beholds his mistress petting the cat and conversely. fox terriers often attempt to bite people who shake hands with their master or, in friendly ways, lay hands on him.
likewise, it was jealousy which drove cain to slay abel and which caused joseph to suffer many indignities at the hands of his brothers.
a freudian might say that cain and joseph's[pg 141] brothers were seeking the father's (god's) homosexual love and begrudged whatever of it was lavished on their victims. adler would more plausibly suggest that the prestige and power wielded by joseph and abel were too much of an irritant for their inferior and greedy brothers.
in other spheres than the sexual sphere, we notice that success won by undisputed superiors or absolute inferiors does not arouse our jealousy. a young pianist does not resent honors bestowed upon paderewksy, nor does paderewsky begrudge the stripling his early success. jealousy, on the other hand, rages among great artists of about the same rank. in the first case, superiority or inferiority is taken for granted. in the case of equals competing for the same laurels inferiority is "feared."
husbands and lovers. many men feel no jealousy over the caresses their mistress may receive from her husband. the husband has been defeated by the lover, hence is "absolutely" inferior.
the same, it goes without saying, applies to women in love with a married man. many men, in fact, prefer to have extramatrimonial affairs with married women and many women with married men. they no longer fear the husband[pg 142] or wife whom they have defeated in the struggle for his or her mate's favor. they consider him or her as a watchful guardian of their mistress's or their lover's sexual life, less formidable than an unknown man or woman might be, who had not been defeated yet.
the suttee custom in india, the various wills left by western men or women, providing that the surviving spouse shall be disinherited if he or she marries again, shows that jealousy has little to do with love, sexual or affectionate. that posthumous jealousy is a distinct attempt at controlling one's "property" after one's death, whether the property be a woman or a certain sum of money.
cruelty. adler has pointed out the cruel character of jealousy and the constant attempts made by jealous neurotics to disparage and belittle their love object.
"the neurotic suffering from jealousy is insatiable in his search for ways to test his mate. this indicates his lack of self confidence, his lack of self esteem and his uncertainty. his jealous efforts are calculated to bring him more into notice, to attract more attention to himself and thus to increase his self-esteem. he revives upon every possible occasion the old feeling of being neglected and dis[pg 143]regarded, and assumes anew the childish attitude of wishing to have everything, to obtain a proof of superiority upon his mate.
"a glance, a word spoken in company, an acknowledgment of a favor, a show of interest for a painting, for an author, for a relative, even a protective attitude toward servants, may be taken as the cause of the operation. in certain cases the impression is distinctly given that the jealous individual cannot rest because he has no confidence in peaceful happiness or account of his misfortune. then a neurosis develops in which an effort is made to subdue the life mate by a system of attacks, to arouse his or her sympathy; or perhaps the attack is intended as a punishment. headaches, weeping fits, weakness, paralysis, [1] attacks of anxiety and depression, silence, etc., have the same value as alcoholism, perversion or lewdness. the line of distrust and doubt, often about the legitimacy of the children, becomes more pronounced, outbreaks of wrath and scolding, mistrust of the entire opposite sex, are regular phenomena and reveal the other side of jealousy as a preparation for the disparagement of the life mate.
[pg 144]
"often pride prevents consciousness of jealousy but the behavior is the same. this situation is at times made worse by the fact that the suspected mate beholds the helplessness of the jealous one with unconscious satisfaction and fails to find the words or the tone that would hold jealousy within bounds."
making people jealous. this is why the efforts made by certain men and women to arouse their sexual partner's jealousy are productive of rather baneful results. they do not bring out the love or affection of the person who is made jealous but his worst egotistical and sadistic traits.
one of the strongest factors in love being the egotistical satisfaction we derive from the possession of the love object and the realisation of our influence over it, our love wanes rapidly when we see another person wielding much power over it.
the stratagem has temporary effects which may deceive the person using them. the jealous lover, at first makes decided efforts to regain his position, but he soon feels swayed by egotistical considerations which lead him toward the line of least effort. slighted by one woman, he turns to another for consolation, and usually finds it.
the man or woman who considers it shrewd to let his mate suspect that "there are others," for one thing encourages faithlessness by creating a prece[pg 145]dent. it is especially when the other (or others) are distinctly inferior in appearance or position that this sort of game ends disastrously. the woman who likes to mention the attentions bestowed upon her by some inferior man and seems to enjoy them accomplishes two things. she makes herself appear inferior and "easy" and makes her lover feel that any inferior man could compete with him for her love and that, hence, he himself must be inferior.
he may run away from her to escape that feeling of inferiority.
if he does not leave her, he no longer feels compelled to make any effort to please her, since worthless homage seems so valuable to her.
jealousy is the hell of love and no one should dare to open its gates lightheartedly.
one should be the more careful in arousing jealousy as the "green eyed goddess" now and then is responsible for some killing. the sexually jealous husband may kill his wife's lover, the egotistically jealous husband may kill the unfaithful wife. the former removes temptation from her path, the latter avenges his wounded egotism.
it is not always the sort of love that flares up frequently in jealous outburst, sexual or egotistical, which is the deepest. i know of a case in which a [pg 146] husband repressed entirely his anger and desire for vengeance when his wife left him to live with another man. a clever psychologist, he realized that lack of opposition to her plans would kill the romance of his wife's rash step. he also knew that any violence to which he might submit her lover would crown him with the halo of martyrdom. he wrote to her: "i shall not interfere with your adventure, for uninterrupted intimacy will soon cause you to tire of each other. nor will i shoot him for i would thereby transform him in your mind into a hero." eventually, the "erring" wife returned to her home.
