jealous of her woman friend because she herself is in love with the
friend. She puts herself in the rôle of the man, the physician, and
concludes that in his position she could not resist the temptation. She
imagines herself in the man’s place; she scrutinizes every woman with
hungry looks. The peep-hole in the consultation room serves on the one
hand the purpose of calming down her jealousy and of giving the poor
husband a few quiet hours; on the other hand it enables her to
participate in everything that is taking place and to gratify her
craving as _voyeuse_. This control is her daily homosexual excitant, the
means through which she rouses the flames of her passion only to still
them afterwards upon her husband.
After the explanation was reached there was a marked improvement in her
condition. The woman saw that her love for the daughter was homosexual
and that this was the reason why she was so jealous of her son-in-law.
The occurrence is far from rare, and many a marriage has been wrecked on
account of it. The angry mother-in-law is always the mother who cannot
live without her daughter and who wants to show her daughter that the
husband is untrue and does not appreciate her and how much more she
truly loves the daughter.... I have also often seen the daughter, after
a timorous attempt at married life, return penitently back to the
mother. I have seen mothers who fight for their daughters with a lover’s
passion and with their tremendous jealousy putting all sorts of
difficulties in the way of any pretenders to the daughter’s hand. I have
found that kind of jealousy frequently as the root of melancholia. I
refer in this connection to Case 132 in my “_Nervöse Angstzustände_”
(2nd ed., p. 363).
72. The next case of jealousy shows the same roots. A married woman, 30
years of age, consults me on account of an unexplainable jealousy which
has been torturing her for about four weeks. She tells the story of her
jealousy: She engaged a new servant, a very young girl, somewhat
coquettish, but who at first glance seemed to her very sympathetic.
After one week she felt jealous and found that her husband, who usually
did not so much as look at the servants in the house, was extremely
friendly and courteous towards that girl. It seemed to her even that he
was bestowing longing glances on the girl. At first she kept silent
because she hesitated to speak of the matter to her husband. But after a
time she reproached him about it: he must be more strict. She requested
him to assume a more severe tone in his relations with the girl. Her
husband laughed at her. He said he talked to the girl in his usual
manner and nothing more. It was all imagination on her part. The girl
was very good; he had no reason to call her down or to assume a more
severe tone towards her. That reassured her somewhat but only for a
short while. She watched her husband more carefully than ever and
thought he was much charmed by the girl. She arose several times during
the night to go into the servant’s room and investigate. Once her
husband had some gastric trouble and he had to leave the room several
times that night. She was convinced that it was but an excuse to go to
the girl and several times she followed him along the chilly passage
into the hall, so that her husband asked: “What is the matter with you
this time?” She said she was worried over his condition and wanted to
watch and see that he was all right. Finally her jealousy broke to
surface a number of times and she reproached her husband very bitterly
with her suspicions. She was absolutely certain that he was intimate
with the girl. Her husband was indignant and asked her to dismiss the
girl at once so that there might be an end to that “foolish notion.” The
remarkable thing was that she felt unable or unwilling to dismiss the
girl. The girl was so good and so faithful, it is so hard nowadays to
find an efficient girl servant, she insisted only that her husband must
show himself more strict with her. He had to declare on his oath again
that there was no intimacy between them. _Towards the girl she felt a
peculiar anger which she could not understand. At times she could have
flown at the girl to strike her, which was very baffling as she had
never been in the habit of striking a servant. But it would have been a
great satisfaction to her to have pummelled this girl who caused her so
much anguish. She had to restrain herself forcefully so as not to give
vent to her rage. She was very “touchy” with the girl and tolerated not
the least contradiction on her part._
Nevertheless she could not make up her mind to dismiss the girl, and yet
she was afraid to be alone with her.
All her troubles arose on account of her homosexual attitude towards the
girl who was in fact a charming blonde type of beauty. She herself was
in love with the girl; that is why she could not conceive that her
husband might be indifferent towards her. She figured: _If I were a man
I would love this girl!_ Interesting, and at the same time typical, is
her rage and desire to strike the girl. The love feeling is converted
into its opposite and the longing to touch the girl (that is, to come
into contact with her body) manifests itself in the inclination to
strike her. How often love contacts disguise themselves as angry blows
under the mask of anger!
I explain to the woman that she must dismiss the girl when she saw
clearly the meaning of her jealousy. After the girl left all the
unpleasant symptoms mentioned above vanished.
Another form of jealousy transfers itself from one object to another, or
to the whole surroundings. Such transference of jealousy serves the
purpose of masking from self and from others the real object of the
original jealousy.
73. Mrs. H. G. is a woman, 38 years of age, who has been living happily
with her husband. At present she is unhappy on account of jealousy. Here
is her statement: “I have called on you to ask you to relieve me of a
condition which I find simply unbearable. I have a good, fine husband
against whom I cannot complain of anything. He is a splendid and model
man in every way. I am the more distressed therefore to be so jealous of
him. I felt that way, first, while my husband was ill with typhus which
left him with heart trouble. He has to be more careful of himself
because of the illness he has been through, and whereas formerly he had
intercourse with me two and three times a week, now it happens only
about once a month. My husband is not well,—I know it; his physician has
expressly told me that he must keep very quiet and avoid all excitement.
Nevertheless I cannot help feeling that he is untrue to me. I am so
ashamed of it that I have not yet breathed a word about my jealousy to
my husband. In fact, we are nearly always together. I know all his
affairs and I often go along wherever he goes. But I cannot hang on to
him every minute. So I hold the watch in hand and count the minutes,
even the seconds, for him to return. Always the one thought: _He is
untrue to you this very minute!_ If he goes to another office, I think
he does it because there is a pretty office girl there with whom he is
in love. If he takes a meal at a restaurant, it is because he has a
_rendezvous_. If he is a few minutes late coming home from the office,
he was with a street woman. In short, I am tormented all the time by
these evil thoughts, I struggle against them but cannot put them out of
my mind.”
“How long have you been in that state?”
“It began when he went to Franzensbad on account of his heart trouble.
There he became acquainted with a spinster, a girl 46 years of age, who
was also alone. They two got together and kept each other company. I
know the girl; she is very honorable, and when my judgment is uppermost,
I say to myself: _Nothing has happened; the two have merely felt a
temporary intellectual interest in one another._ But in my evil hours my
mind conjures up the worst thoughts. I have once read a letter which
that woman had written my husband. She thanked him for his interesting
company during the cure. A few weeks after the Franzensbad cure, there
came a box of flowers and a letter for my husband. The woman wrote
thanking him for his pleasant company during the cure,—she was very glad
to have made the acquaintance of so prominent and intellectual a
gentleman and hoped their friendship would endure beyond the time of the
cure. At that I reproached my husband and tortured him with my jealousy.
He gave me his word of honor that his relations with the woman were
strictly of a friendly and formal character; aside of his own
considerations, he was a sick man and satisfied to be left alone. But I
asked him to give up all further correspondence with the woman and he
readily consented. He is really a fine fellow who grants me everything I
want, a man who reads in my eyes every wish of mine, and I am ashamed to
think ill of him all the time.”
Here we see one source of her jealousy. The woman was married to a man
who gratified her in every respect; suddenly she had to restrict herself
to an abstinent life. The enforced abstinence suggested the thought:
_You are still young and attractive, so many men are after you! Take a
lover._ She was filled with fancies of longing and projected them unto
her husband. If he were unfaithful it would furnish an excuse for her.
She needed it; she wanted him to be unfaithful, for that would have
served her as a defense. Her compulsive thinking is the masking of the
thought: _Oh, that my husband were unfaithful so that I, too, might take
a lover!_
The thought was suggested to her by the fact that the wife of one of her
husband’s colleagues, a very light-minded person, was able,
nevertheless, to keep up a very handsome social position. She spoke with
great feeling about that woman.
“Does that woman not take loyalty so seriously as you do?”
“That woman? She does not have one lover; she has six at a time, and
even more! She certainly enjoys life. And the lovers pay for everything.
She has the finest wardrobe, the prettiest hats, takes wonderful
journeys and her husband knows everything.”
“Isn’t her husband jealous?”
“Oh, no! He knows everything, and consoles himself in his own way. But,
do you know the curious part of it all? That flighty woman is jealous of
her husband! She quarrels bitterly with him when she hears of his
escapades, although she has no right. The two have taken reciprocal
freedom....”
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.
“After that father avoided me and my sisters. But the proposed marriage
did not take place,—I had accomplished that much. I went no longer to
his house when he had suddenly a light stroke and was forced to appeal
to us children. Then we had a complete family reconciliation and since
that time I have again my father. Now I see him daily, we children take
turns in looking after him.”
“Have you no feeling of guilt and did you never think that your father
fell ill because you wished it? Did you not want him to be so crippled
and reduced to your care that he should be able no longer to carry on?”
“I don’t feel guilty and I have no regrets. Only satisfaction.... I
wished it to be that way and it has come out as I wished. For now I have
once more a father of whom I need not be ashamed. But you must not think
that I was jealous on my own account. I only felt myself the
representative of my mother.”
“You are not jealous of your sister?”
“Yes ... when father is very demonstrative with her, I feel the same
wild jealousy come over me, but I control myself....”
Here we see jealousy rising out of an incestuous wish first directed
upon a man, then transferred to the whole environment. This transference
of jealousy to every one serves more effectively to cover the genuine
jealousy of the father. The death of the mother left this young woman in
a critical position. Obviously her wish as a child was: “_When mother
dies I will marry father._” A wish which so many girls entertain and
even openly express. With the death of the mother the new situation
presented itself. A place close to father was vacated and now other
women filled it. The old father’s behavior showed that he was still a
man. But one thing stood against this fancy: her husband. So long as he
lived she could not go to live with her father. Her husband’s illness
brought matters prospectively nearer to an issue. The physician had
declared that he could not live long, his heart trouble was serious. She
might yet be free! Her agitation explains a number of peculiar dreams
she had. She dreamed repeatedly of quarreling with her husband and of
striking him. _Several times already she has beaten him up and she has
even shot him in her dreams. She is also unfair to the child, turning
against it with hatred on slightest provocation._
We see that the jealousy of the husband also has the rôle of
legitimizing a hatred which has its roots in other causes. For she
confesses that during her fits of jealousy, when she thinks that her
husband is unfaithful, she feels a bitter hatred against him and could
murder him.... The husband is in the way, her hatred corresponds to the
idea that he is a hindrance. During the night the hatred breaks forth
but during the waking hours it is rationalized as due to jealousy. For
she admits that she has really never fully loved her husband. Her
affection goes to her father. She imagines that she is fighting for the
preservation of her mother’s pure memory; that furnishes an ethical
cover and masks the true motives.
The relationship of this jealousy to homosexuality is interesting. It
furnishes an excellent proof of our findings concerning homosexuality.
One must bear in mind, first of all, that many factors contribute in
this instance to bring about the regression to the infantile level: her
husband’s serious illness, his relative impotence and abstinence, her
mother’s illness, the father’s change to a devil-may-care attitude,
showing her that one may change even in late years, and that it is never
too late fully to enjoy the fruits of love. Her homosexuality was always
ready to break forth in her. She identified herself with her father
looking at women through his eyes. She had protected herself at first by
a passionate love for her husband and minor various trivial homosexual
traits of her childhood were thus readily overcome. Her swing to
heterosexuality was very successful with the aid of her husband. Her
homosexuality was repressed, only to reappear at the beginning of the
menopause,—woman’s critical age. The involutive processes taking place
in the genital glands, and the general physical changes in woman at the
time play a certain rôle in that connection. Her husband’s impotence and
the friend’s exciting example of her attractive friend, with whom she
herself was secretly in love, again roused her homosexual feelings,
though the attitude showed itself only under the guise of jealousy. But
the father’s conduct, since her father was the deepest cause of her
aversion against man, was what really made her lose her balance. She
might have become an _urlind_, had her father remained the old, kindly,
bland and quiet gentleman. But since he abandoned the mask after the
death of the mother, he roused all the daughter’s evil instincts. Not
only the infantile erotic predisposition but the infantile criminal
tendencies as well. In her dreams she murdered her husband who prevented
her from turning entirely to her father and fulfill an infantile wish to
become her father’s wife. She also repeatedly killed the children and
her beloved friends. This woman during her critical period displayed not
only the craving for love but also the aboriginal emotion, the
primordial stuff, out of which everything beautiful and great has
evolved: hatred.
Hatred against the other sex and against her rivals, hatred against the
children whom she could have killed when anger seized her soul....