There can be no question that as presence has its risks for love, so also has absence. Absence like presence, in the end, if too prolonged, effaces the memory of love, and absence, further, by the multiplied points of contact with the world which it frequently involves, introduces the problem of jealousy, although, it must be added, it is difficult indeed to secure a degree of association which excludes jealousy or even the opportunities for motives of jealousy. The problem of jealousy is so fundamental in the art of love that it is necessary at this point to devote to it a brief discussion.
Jealousy is based on fundamental instincts which are visible at the beginning of animal life. Descartes defined jealousy as "a kind of fear related to a desire to preserve a possession." Every impulse of acquisition in the animal world is stimulated into greater activity by the presence of a rival who may snatch beforehand the coveted object. This seems to be a fundamental fact in the animal world; it has been a life-conserving tendency, for, it has been said, an animal that stood aside while its fellows were gorging themselves with food, and experienced nothing but pure satisfaction in the spectacle, would speedily perish. But in this fact we have the natural basis of jealousy.[[411]]
It is in reference to food that this impulse appears first and most conspicuously among animals. It is a well-known fact that association with other animals induces an animal to eat much more than when kept by himself. He ceases to eat from hunger but eats, as it has been put, in order to preserve his food from rivals in the only strong box he knows. The same feeling is transferred among animals to the field of sex. And further in the relations of dogs and other domesticated animals to their masters the emotion of jealousy is often very keenly marked.[[412]]
Jealousy is an emotion which is at its maximum among animals, among savages,[[413]] among children,[[414]] in the senile, in the degenerate, and very specially in chronic alcoholics.[[415]] It is worthy of note that the supreme artists and masters of the human heart who have most consummately represented the tragedy of jealousy clearly recognized that it is either atavistic or pathological; Shakespeare made his Othello a barbarian, and Tolstoy made the Pozdnischeff of his Kreutzer Sonata a lunatic. It is an anti-social emotion, though it has been maintained by some that it has been the cause of chastity and fidelity. Gesell, for instance, while admitting its anti-social character and accumulating quotations in evidence of the torture and disaster it occasions, seems to think that it still ought to be encouraged in order to foster sexual virtues. Very decided opinions have been expressed in the opposite sense. Jealousy, like other shadows, says Ellen Key, belongs only to the dawn and the setting of love, and a man should feel that it is a miracle, and not his right, if the sun stands still at the zenith.[[416]]
Even therefore if jealousy has been a beneficial influence at the beginning of civilization, as well as among animals,—as may probably be admitted, though on the whole it seems rather to be the by-product of a beneficial influence than such an influence itself,—it is still by no means clear that it therefore becomes a desirable emotion in more advanced stages of civilization. There are many primitive emotions, like anger and fear, which we do not think it desirable to encourage in complex civilized societies but rather seek to restrain and control, and even if we are inclined to attribute an original value to jealousy, it seems to be among these emotions that it ought to be placed.
Miss Clapperton, in discussing this problem (Scientific Meliorism, pp. 129-137), follows Darwin (Descent of Man, Part I, Ch. IV) in thinking that jealousy led to "the inculcation of female virtue," but she adds that it has also been a cause of woman's subjection, and now needs to be eliminated. "To rid ourselves as rapidly as may be of jealousy is essential; otherwise the great movement in favor of equality of sex will necessarily meet with checks and grave obstruction."
Ribot (La Logique des Sentiments, pp. 75 et seq.; Essai sur les Passions, pp. 91, 175), while stating that subjectively the estimate of jealousy must differ in accordance with the ideal of life held, considers that objectively we must incline to an unfavorable estimate "Even a brief passion is a rupture in the normal life; it is an abnormal, if not a pathological state, an excrescence, a parasitism."
Forel (Die Sexuelle Frage, Ch. V) speaks very strongly in the same sense, and considers that it is necessary to eliminate jealousy by non-procreation of the jealous. Jealousy is, he declares, "the worst and unfortunately the most deeply-rooted of the 'irradiations,' or, better, the 'contrast-reactions,' of sexual love inherited from our animal ancestors. An old German saying, 'Eifersucht ist eine Leidenschaft die mit Eifer sucht was Leider schafft,' says by no means too much.... Jealousy is a heritage of animality and barbarism; I would recall this to those who, under the name of 'injured honor,' attempt to justify it and place it on a high pedestal. An unfaithful husband is ten times more to be wished for a woman than a jealous husband.... We often hear of 'justifiable jealousy.' I believe, however, that there is no justifiable jealousy; it is always atavistic or else pathological; at the best it is nothing more than a brutal animal stupidity. A man who, by nature, that is by his hereditary constitution, is jealous is certain to poison his own life and that of his wife. Such men ought on no account to marry. Both education and selection should work together to eliminate jealousy as far as possible from the human brain."
Eric Gillard in an article on "Jealousy" (Free Review, Sept., 1896), in opposition to those who believe that jealousy "makes the home," declares that, on the contrary, it is the chief force that unmakes the home. "So long as egotism waters it with the tears of sentiment and shields it from the cold blasts of scientific inquiry, so long will it thrive. But the time will come when it will be burned in the Garden of Love as a noxious weed. Its mephitic influence in society is too palpable to be overlooked. It turns homes that might be sanctuaries of love into hells of discord and hate; it causes suicides, and it drives thousands to drink, reckless excesses, and madness. Makes the home! One of your married men friends sees a probable seducer in every man who smiles at his wife; another is jealous of his wife's women acquaintances; a third is wounded because his wife shows so much attention to the children. Some of the women you know display jealousy of every other woman, of their husband's acquaintances, and some, of his very dog. You must be completely monopolized or you do not thoroughly love. You must admire no one but the person with whom you have immured yourself for life. Old friendships must be dissolved, new friendships must not be formed, for fear of invoking the beautiful emotion that 'makes the home.'"
Even if jealousy in matters of sex could be admitted to be an emotion working on the side of civilized progress, it must still be pointed out that it merely acts externally; it can have little or no real influence; the jealous person seldom makes himself more lovable by his jealousy and frequently much less lovable. The main effect of his jealousy is to increase, and not seldom to excite, the causes for jealousy, and at the same time to encourage hypocrisy.