This is also a common occurrence and very interesting. Married couples living apart, each carrying on all sorts of adventures and love affairs, yet jealous of each other, though usually they do not show it.[[15]] There are persons who love each other very warmly, but in the struggle between the sexes they regard loyalty as submissiveness, as a humbling before the partner, and they would perish rather than submit to such a love.[[16]]
Her calculating friend is a sophisticated woman possessing wonderful tact, she tastes all forms of pleasure, plays a certain social rôle, and enjoys every phase of life. Moreover she is a very attractive woman appealing strongly to our jealous subject.
Back of her jealous thoughts, again, there stand homosexual fancies. At the time when her husband began to restrict his marital indulgences her homosexual longing began to assert itself. She did not want to be unfaithful. She was thus inhibited against taking up a man. Therefore her thoughts could only turn to woman. Her inner reflection was: If I were a man, I would enjoy a pretty woman every little while and more particularly that flighty friend whom I like so well.
The flighty woman had roused every feeling in her. Not only her homosexuality, but also all those prostituting tendencies which either slumber deeply hidden in every woman’s soul or break to surface before self and before the whole world. To be paid for the service of love, to receive actual coin in recognition of her sexual charm—that is a fancy looming up under various cover-symptoms among the neurotics.
That polygamic friend of hers achieved everything that a woman may wish, and in spite of that she maintained her good social standing. She moved in a select circle, folks merely shutting one eye so long as she was so clever in covering her tracks.
That example is constantly before her eyes. She herself is sexually ungratified, financially she can hardly make both ends meet, and she sees the other woman getting everything she needs: money and love. The question, Does it pay to be honest? continually recurs to her mind.
She unburdens herself of a mass of similar reflections but does not think that the real cause of her jealousy depends on herself. She is jealous also of the servant girl, the man-servant, and the children. She is even jealous of her male friends. She has a certain good friend whom she put in touch, so to speak, with a woman friend because he did not mean anything to her. Since that time he has been keeping up a close acquaintance with that woman and she is very jealous; she would like to get him away from her and to have him entirely to herself. She cannot bear to see a child familiar with other persons and is wild even when the servant girl receives a letter or a show post card through the mail. It is the perseverance of the instinct of possession on account of diminished sexual gratification. She is reduced, so to speak, to small rations and therefore wants to accumulate and reserve for herself everything the environment yields in the form of love. The little she has she wants to preserve for herself only and to protect as her own exclusive possession. The same attitude is seen on the part of children who have a favorite older brother or sister. They are extremely jealous of their trifling possessions and are enraged when the other children in the house attempt to touch their toys. The others may have more, but what little they possess they want to preserve exclusively for themselves.
The subject thus tells about her jealousy of everything and everybody. But she displays but little understanding of psychic relationships, she is afraid to come to me because while at my office she cannot watch her husband, and stays away a few days. It seems as if she had something important to tell me but does not quite find the courage to do so.
Soon she calls at my office again complaining that her jealousy grows worse; she suffered terribly that day, and all through the previous night she had hardly closed her eyes. And presently she confesses that the jealousy actually began after the death of her mother.
“Do you know—dear doctor—my mother was the model of a noble woman. She was virtuous, diligent, well educated, sweet tempered, a veritable angel in human form. In spite of it all—I don’t know why—I was more strongly attached to father. Possibly because he played more with us and paid more attention to our games and excursions while mother was more strict in her training and careful to inculcate in us a sense of orderliness. Mother died of a painful growth. I said to myself: ‘Now you must take mother’s place with father. You must take care of him.’ Father was already 62 years of age, and suffered occasionally of gouty attacks. I was tremendously shocked to see my father put aside mourning after a few weeks and change into an elegant man-about-town,—he the respectable town official, who had never before gone a step without mother.... He started to frequent nightly disreputable dives and I soon heard that he was having relations with various disreputable women of the town. I was so disconsolate, in my anguish I visited daily mother’s grave. There I threw myself to the ground and out of the bitterness of my heart I implored mother and prayed to her. ‘Mother,’ I cried, ‘you must not let this go on, you must not allow your good name and honor to be dragged down that way. Mother, put an end to these shameful doings. Make father so ill that he shall be unable to sin any more and besmirch your memory.’ Thus I implored and prayed. But it did not do any good. Soon I observed that father was intimate with our young servant girl and that she was trying to get hold of his money. I drove her out of the house with the aid of the police because I discovered that she was stealing money from father. O, I was like a fury and irreconcilable because the honor of my mother was at stake, and I had ceased to respect my father who had been the dearest person in the world to me! After that I had peace for a few weeks because father suffered one of his gout attacks. I prayed to God and to the virgin mother to keep father confined to his bed so that he should be able no longer to add to his sins. But father got well soon and resumed his former care-free nocturnal rounds of amusement places. Chorus girls, dancers, street women and others of that ilk gathered at our house and were lavishly entertained. Then one day I heard that father intended to marry again. He had become engaged to a 42-year-old widow. I knew at once that the woman had her eye on father’s money. I bought a revolver and, I tell you frankly: I should have killed either the woman or my father if there had been any marriage. Perhaps I would have done away with both, for I was determined to protect mother’s memory against this insult and shame. I went to that woman’s house and gave her such a warning that the engagement was soon given up. I told that shameless adventuress: ‘You will never reach the altar alive; that I swear solemnly on mother’s memory!’ I was fully determined to shoot them both. You can appreciate how excited I was.