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 th............