Winks, shrugs, nudges, laughter, sneers, haughtiness, coldness, “giving the once over” are also language defining the situation and painfully felt as unfavorable recognition. The sneer, for example, is incipient vomiting, meaning, “you make me sick.”
And eventually the violation of the code even in an act of no intrinsic importance, as in carrying food to the mouth with the knife, provokes condemnation and disgust. The fork is not a better instrument for conveying food than the knife, at least it has no moral superiority, but the situation has been defined in favor of the fork. To smack with the lips in eating is bad manners with us, but the Indian has more logically defined the situation in the opposite way; with him smacking is a compliment to the host.
In this whole connection fear is used by the group to produce the desired attitudes in its member. Praise is used also but more sparingly. And the whole body of habits and emotions is so much a community and family product that disapproval or separation is almost unbearable. The following case shows the painful situation of one who has lost her place in a family and community.
29. I am a young woman of about twenty; I was born in America but my parents come from Hungary. They are very religious.... When I was fourteen I became acquainted in school with a gentile boy of German parents. He was a very fine and decent boy. I liked his company ... and we became close friends. Our friendship continued over a period of several years, unknown to my parents. I did not want to tell them, knowing quite well that they would not allow my friendship to a gentile.
When we grew older, our friendship developed into ardent love and one year ago we decided to marry—without my parents’ consent, of course. I surmised that after my wedding they would forgive my marrying a non-Jewish young man, but just the opposite turned out. My religious parents were full of scorn when they learned of my secret doings, and not only did they not forgive me but they chased me out of the house and refused to have anything to do with me.
To add to my misfortune, I am now being spurned by my friend, my lover, my everything—my husband. After our marriage he became a different man; he drank and gambled and called me the vilest names. He continually asked why he married a “damned Jewess”, as if it were my fault alone. Before our marriage I was the best girl in the world for him and now he would drown me in a spoonful of water to get rid of me. Fortunately I have no child as yet.
My husband’s parents hate me even more than my husband and just as I was turned out of the house for marrying a gentile, so he was shown the door by his parents for marrying a Jewess.
Well, a few months ago my husband deserted me and I have no idea of his whereabouts. I was confronted by a terrible situation. Spurned by my own relatives and by my husband’s, I feel very lonely, not having some one to tell my troubles to.
Now, I want you to advise me how to find my husband. I do not want to live with him by compulsion, nor do I ask his support, for I earn my living working in a shop. I merely ask his aid in somehow obtaining a divorce, so that I may return to my people, to my God and to my parents. I cannot stand the loneliness and do not want to be hated, denounced and spurned by all. My loneliness will drive me to a premature grave.
Perhaps you can tell me how to get rid of my misfortune. Believe me, I am not to blame for what I have done—it was my ignorance. I never believed that it was such a terrible crime to marry a non-Jew and that my parents would under no circumstances forgive me. I am willing to do anything, to make the greatest sacrifice, if only the terrible ban be taken off me.[[32]]