"the discarded ones will often, through jealousy, fight with her whom they consider more favored; on such occasions they may often resort to stone-throwing, or even use fire-sticks and stone-knives with which to mutilate the genitals."
Similarly, various cruel disfigurements of wives by husbands or other wives, previously referred to as customary among savages, have their motive in the desire to mar the charms of a rival or a disobedient conjugal slave. The Indian chief who bites off an intriguing wife's nose or lower lip takes, moreover, a cruel delight at sight of the pain he inflicts—a delight of which he would be incapable were he capable of love. To such an Indian, Shakspere's lines
But O, what damned minutes tells he o'er
Who dotes yet doubts, suspects, yet strongly loves,
would be as incomprehensible as a Beethoven symphony. With his usual genius for condensation, Shakspere has in those two lines given the essentials of true jealousy—suspicion causing agony rather than anger, and proceeding from love, not from hate. The fear, distress, humiliation, anguish of modern jealousy are in the mind of the injured husband. He suffers torments, but has no wish to torment either of the guilty ones. There are, indeed, even in civilized countries, husbands who slay erring wives; but they are not civilized husbands: like Othello, they still have the taint of the savage in them. Civilized husbands resort to separation, not to mutilation or murder; and in dismissing the guilty wife, they punish themselves more than her—for she has shown by her actions that she does not love him and therefore cannot feel the deepest pang of the separation. There is no anger, no desire for revenge.
How comes this gentle concord in the world,
That hatred is so far from jealousy?
It comes in the world through love—through the fact that a man—or a woman—who truly loves, cannot tolerate even the thought of punishing one who has held first place in his or her affections. Modern law emphasizes the essential point when it punishes adultery because of "alienation of the affections."
A VIRTUOUS SIN
Thus, whereas the "jealousy" of the savage who is transported by his sense of proprietorship to bloody deeds and to revenge is a most ignoble passion, incompatible with love, the jealousy of modern civilization has become a noble passion, justified by moral ideals and affection—"a kind of godly jealousy which I beseech you call a virtuous sin."
Where Love reigns, disturbing Jealousy
Doth call himself Affection's sentinel.
And let no one suppose that by purging itself of bloody violence, hatred, and revenge, and becoming the sentinel of affection, jealousy has lost any of its intensity. On the contrary, its depth is quintupled. The bluster and fury of savage violence is only a momentary ebullition of sensual passion, whereas the anguish of jealousy as we feel it is