DOES JEALOUSY COME FROM TRUE LOVE?
The different kinds of girls that men seek in matrimony--Jealousy
is intensified, not created, by love--Why should not a married man
continue to admire women?--I want to knock down a newly-married
woman's husband--'Who would "polyg" with him?'
There are men who would not think of courting a woman with a view to
marrying her if they knew she had been engaged before. On the contrary,
there are others who marry women who have spent their girlhoods in
flirting and have been engaged a dozen times. These women seem to have
a special sort of attraction for men who feel proud of winning a
'prize' that has been so much sought after, and who are very much like
those people who do not know the value of a picture until, at a sale,
they hear men bid higher and higher for the purchase, and conclude
that the picture must be a priceless treasure. So they bid higher still,
and get it. As a rule, these men are remarkable neither for their
intelligence nor for their appreciation of true womanhood.
This remark, however, would apply to Englishmen or Americans rather
than to Frenchmen, because in France, when a girl has been engaged, she
has only met her _fiance_ in the presence of her parents, whereas in
England or America the young people have had lonely and sentimental
walks together, indulged in many little familiarities--proper, no
doubt, but still familiarities, all the same; and the young Anglo-Saxon
girl who has been engaged is a flower whose bloom has been a little
rubbed off. In the eyes of the real, true man, she has lost--indeed,
she _must_ have lost--some of her value, a bit of her innocence, as it
were. How can a man marry such a girl and run the risk, when he gives
her a kiss, of hearing her exclaim: 'Oh, Jack used to give me much
better kisses than that!' He must be a very brave man, one very sure of
himself, who is not afraid of competition, or a very conceited, if not
a very foolish, one.
Not only are there men who court women because they are run after, but
there are some who never really fall in love with their wives until
they have some serious reasons to be jealous of them. Then, and then
only, do they seem to realize that their wives must possess some
attractions, since other men are attracted by them. But this sentiment
I should not care to call love, but rather false pride, because that
man might have exactly the same feeling toward a horse or a dog the
possession of which other men envied him. Many a man, on hearing the
beauty of his wife praised, has said to himself: 'I wonder if it is
true. I must have a look at her.'
I have heard many men and women say that there is no love without
jealousy--in fact, that jealousy is the natural consequence of love.
St. Augustine said: 'He that is not jealous is not in love.' I believe
these people are wrong, including St. Augustine, before whose authority
on love and women I decline to bow. There is no room for jealousy in
the heart that loves really and truly. There is no real love where
there is no _abandon_ and complete confidence.
Jealousy may be intensified by love, but not created by it. Jealousy is
a characteristic of men and women which manifests itself in love as it
does in friendship and in every phase of life. Love gives it a special
opportunity, but it existed before the man or the woman was in love.
Such men and women, who are jealous of their wives and their husbands,
were jealous before of their brothers, sisters, or acquaintances,
whenever they imagined that they were displaced by them in the
affections of the family or of their friends.
That man who is jealous of his wife because he imagines, rightly or
wrongly, that she receives and accepts the attentions of other men,
will also probably be jealous of her if his children show preference to
her or bestow more attentions on her than on him. Othello is a jealous
brute who might have murdered a General in the Venetian army who had
been promoted to a rank he would have considered himself entitled to.
And when people are jealous in love, what fools they are to let it be
seen! What an idiot that man is who lets his wife suppose that he
thinks she could prefer another man to him! Suggestions are terrible.
What a poor diplomatist that woman is who does not let her husband
think that she takes it for granted no woman could have in his eyes
the charms she possesses! Jealousy can only suggest to men and women
actions which would revolt them if they had absolute confidence in each
other.
In love, however, jealousy should not be condemned too severely. A
little of it, just a little, adds piquancy. It then becomes an emotion,
a stimulant, that rouses desire, something like that short absence
which the Italians call the _dolce piccante_, and which many
artistically constituted lovers will take now and then merely to
increase the pleasure of reunion. Epicures will do it, and invariably
with success. A diplomatist, who loves his wife, and is sure to be
loved by her, may cure her of a passing little coldness by openly
paying innocent attentions to another woman. And who is the man who is
such a strict monogamist that he cannot admire--in a platonic way, of
course--other women besides the one he loves? And who is the woman who
is not aware of that? I remember, a few years ago, greatly admiring a
beautiful American girl, daughter of a great friend of mine. When, the
following year, I went to America again, she introduced me to her
husband. Did I admire that girl? Yes, immensely. Did I love her?
Certainly not. Yet my first impulse was to knock down her husband. That
is all I mean by saying that very few men are strict monogamists.
* * * * *
A little anecdote, _a propos_ of polygamy, to finish.
Not long ago one of the most popular novelists of England was calling
on a lady, one of the most popular novelists of America. That
Englishman is, perhaps, the plainest man I have ever set my eyes on.
He, too, held, in conversation, that every man was born a polygamist.
The lady said nothing. But when he had gone, she turned towards her
guests, and said: 'Well, I should like to know who would "polyg" with
him!'