The humiliating conditions to which women have been subjected in the past and present social order, and to which full reference has been made in previous chapters, give sufficient explanation of the jealousy which is recognized as a marked, and, as might appear, inevitable characteristic of Japanese women. Especially does this seem inevitable when it is remembered how slight is their hold on their husbands, on whose faithfulness their happiness so largely depends. Only as this order changes and the wife secures a more certain place in the home, free from the competition of concubines and harlots and dancing girls, can we expect the characteristic to disappear. That it will do so under such conditions, there is no reason to question. Already there are evidences that in homes where the husband and the wife are both earnest Christians, and where each is confident of the loyalty of the other, jealousy is as rare as it is in Christian lands. But is jealousy a characteristic limited to women? or is it not also a characteristic of men? I am assured from many quarters that men also suffer from it. The jealousy of a woman is aroused by the fear that some other woman may supplant her in the eyes of her husband; that of a man by the fear that some man may supplant him in rank or influence. Marital jealousy of men seems to be rare. Yet I heard not long since of a man who was so afraid lest some man might steal his wife's affections that he could not attend to his business, and finally, after three months of married wretchedness, he divorced her. A year later he married her again, but the old trouble reappeared, and so he divorced her a second time. If marital jealousy is less common among men than among women, the explanation is at hand in the lax moral standard for man. The feudal order of society, furthermore, was exactly the soil in which to develop masculine jealousy. In such a society ambition and jealousy go hand in hand. Wherever a man's rise in popularity and influence depends on the overthrow of someone already in possession, jealousy is natural. Connected with the spirit of jealousy is that of revenge. Had we known Japan only during her feudal days, we should have pronounced the Japanese exceedingly revengeful. Revenge was not only the custom, it was also the law of the land and the teaching of moralists. One of the proverbs handed down from the hoary past is: "Kumpu no ada to tomo ni ten we itadakazu." "With the enemy of country, or father, one cannot live under the same heaven." The tales of heroic Japan abound in stories of revenge. Once when Confucius was asked about the doctrine of Lao-Tse that one should return good for evil, he replied, "With what then should one reward good? The true doctrine is to return good for good, and evil with justice." This saying of Confucius has nullified for twenty-four hundred years that pearl of truth enunciated by Lao-Tse, and has caused it to remain an undiscovered diamond amid the rubbish of Taoism.