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