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 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 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 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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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