SUBSECT. II.—Causes of Jealousy. Who are most apt. Idleness, melancholy, impotency, long absence, beauty, wantonness, naught themselves. Allurements, from time, place, persons, bad usage, causes.
Astrologers make the stars a cause or sign of this bitter passion, and out of every man's horoscope will give a probable conjecture whether he will be jealous or no, and at what time, by direction of the significators to their several promissors: their aphorisms are to be read in Albubater, Pontanus, Schoner, Junctine, &c. Bodine, cap. 5. meth. hist. ascribes a great cause to the country or clime, and discourseth largely there of this subject, saying, that southern men are more hot, lascivious, and jealous, than such as live in the north; they can hardly contain themselves in those hotter climes, but are most subject to prodigious lust. Leo Afer telleth incredible things almost, of the lust and jealousy of his countrymen of Africa, and especially such as live about Carthage, and so doth every geographer of them in [6030]Asia, Turkey, Spaniards, Italians. Germany hath not so many drunkards, England tobacconists, France dancers, Holland mariners, as Italy alone hath jealous husbands. And in [6031]Italy some account them of Piacenza more jealous than the rest. In [6032]Germany, France, Britain, Scandia, Poland, Muscovy, they are not so troubled with this feral malady, although Damianus a Goes, which I do much wonder at, in his topography of Lapland, and Herbastein of Russia, against the stream of all other geographers, would fasten it upon those northern inhabitants. Altomarius Poggius, and Munster in his description of Baden, reports that men and women of all sorts go commonly into the baths together, without all suspicion, “the name of jealousy” (saith Munster) “is not so much as once heard of among them.” In Friesland the women kiss him they drink to, and are kissed again of those they pledge. The virgins in Holland go hand in hand with young men from home, glide on the ice, such is their harmless liberty, and lodge together abroad without suspicion, which rash Sansovinus an Italian makes a great sign of unchastity. In France, upon small acquaintance, it is usual to court other men's wives, to come to their houses, and accompany them arm in arm in the streets, without imputation. In the most northern countries young men and maids familiarly dance together, men and their wives, [6033]which, Siena only excepted, Italians may not abide. The [6034]Greeks, on the other side, have their private baths for men and women, where they must not come near, nor so much as see one another: and as [6035]Bodine observes lib. 5. de repub. “the Italians could never endure this,” or a Spaniard, the very conceit of it would make him mad: and for that cause they lock up their women, and will not suffer them to be near men, so much as in the [6036]church, but with a partition between. He telleth, moreover, how that “when he was ambassador in England, he heard Mendoza the Spanish legate finding fault with it, as a filthy custom for men and women to sit promiscuously in churches together; but Dr. Dale the master of the requests told him again, that it was indeed a filthy custom in Spain, where they could not contain themselves from lascivious thoughts in their holy places, but not with us.” Baronius in his Annals, out of Eusebius, taxeth Licinius the emperor for a decree of his made to this effect, Jubens ne viri simul cum mulieribus in ecclesia interessent: for being prodigiously naught himself, aliorum naturam ex sua vitiosa mente spectavit, he so esteemed others. But we are far from any such strange conceits, and will permit our wives and daughters to go to the tavern with a friend, as Aubanus saith, modo absit lascivia, and suspect nothing, to kiss coming and going, which, as Erasmus writes in one of his epistles, they cannot endure. England is a paradise for women, and hell for horses: Italy a paradise for horses, hell for women, as the diverb goes. Some make a question whether this headstrong passion rage more in women than men, as Montaigne l. 3. But sure it is more outrageous in women, as all other melancholy is, by reason of the weakness of their sex. Scaliger Poet. lib. cap. 13. concludes against women: [6037]“Besides their inconstancy, treachery, suspicion, dissimulation, superstition, pride,” (for all women are by nature proud) “desire of sovereignty, if they be great women,” (he gives instance in Juno) “bitterness and jealousy are the most remarkable affections.”
Sed neque fulvus aper media tam fulvus in ira est,
Fulmineo rapidos dum rotat ore canes.
Nec leo, &c.———
Tiger, boar, bear, viper, lioness,
A woman's fury cannot express.
[6039]High colour in a woman choler shows,
Naught are they, peevish, proud, malicious;
But worst of all, red, shrill, and jealous.