Such jealousy, if unfounded, may be of the “self-harming” kind of which one of Shakspere’s characters exclaims “Fie! beat it hence!” Too often, however, women have cause for jealousy, as modern civilized man has not overcome the polygamous instincts he has inherited from his ancestors since time immemorial.  But whereas cause for feminine jealousy has existed always, the right to feel it is a modern acquisition.  Moreover, while Apache wives were chaste from fear and Greek women from necessity, modern civilized women are faithful from the sense of honor, duty, affection, and in return for their devotion they expect men to be faithful for the same reasons.  Their jealousy has not yet become retrospective, like that of the men; but they justly demand that after marriage men shall not fall below the standard of purity they have set up for the women, and they insist on a conjugal monopoly of the affections as strenuously as the men do.  In due course of time, as Dr. Campbell suggests, “we may expect the monogamous instinct in man to be as powerful as in some of the lower animals; and feminine jealousy will help to bring about this result; for if women were indifferent on this point men would never improve.”

JEALOUSY IN ROMANTIC LOVE

The jealousy of romantic love, preceding marriage, differs from the jealousy of conjugal love in so far as there can be no claim to a monopoly of affection where the very existence of any reciprocated affection still remains in doubt.  Before the engagement the uncertain lover in presence of a rival is tortured by doubt, anxiety, fear, despair, and he may violently hate the other man, though (as I know from personal experience) not necessarily, feeling that the rival has as much claim to the girl’s attention as he has.  Duels between rival lovers are not only silly, but are an insult to the girl, to whom the choice ought to be submitted and the verdict accepted manfully.  A man who shoots the girl herself, because she loves another and refuses him, puts himself on a level below the lowest brute, and cannot plead either true love or true jealousy as his excuse.  After the engagement the sense of monopoly and the consciousness of plighted troth enter into the lover’s feelings, and intruders are properly warded off with indignation.  In romantic jealousy the leading role is played by the imagination; it loves to torture its victim by conjuring visions of the beloved smiling on a rival, encircled by his arm, returning his kisses.  Everything feeds his suspicions; he is “dwelling in a continual ’larum of jealousy.”  Oft his jealousy “shapes faults that are not” and he taints his heart and brain with needless doubt.  “Ten thousand fears invented wild, ten thousand frantic views of horrid rivals, hanging on the charms for which he melts in fondness, eat him up.”  Such passion inflames love but corrodes the soul.  In perfect love, as I said at the beginning of this chapter, jealousy is potential only, not actual.