prevalent. Powers says that with the California Indians "no adultery
is so flagrant but the husband can be placated with money, at about
the same rate that would be paid for murder." The Tasmanians
illustrate the fact that the same tribes that are the most ferocious
in the punishment of secret amours--that is, infringements on their
property rights--are often the most liberal in lending their wives. As
Bonwick tells us (72), they felt honored if white men paid attention
to them. A circumstance which seems to have puzzled some naïve
writers: that Australians and Africans have been known to show less
"jealousy" of whites than of their own countrymen, finds an easy
explanation in the greater ability of the white man to pay for the
husband's complaisance. In some cases, in the absence of a fine, the
husband takes his revenge in other ways, subjecting the culprit's wife
to the same outrage (as among natives of Guiana and New Caledonia) or
delivering his own guilty (or rather disobedient) wife to young men
(as among the Omahas) and then abandoning her. The custom of accepting
compensation for adultery prevailed also among Dyaks, Mandingoes,
Kaffirs, Mongolians, Pahari and other tribes of India, etc. Falkner
says (126) that among the Patagonians in cases of adultery the wife is
not blamed, but the gallant is punished

"unless he atones for the injury by some valuable
present. They have so little decency in this respect,
that oftentimes, at the command of the wizards, they
superstitiously send their wives to the woods to
prostitute themselves to the first person they meet."


PERSIAN AND GREEK JEALOUSY

Enough has been said to prove the incorrectness of Westermarck's
assertion (515) that the lack of jealousy is "a rare exception in the
human race." Real jealousy, as a matter of fact, is unknown to the
lower races, and even the feeling of revenge that passes by that name
is commonly so feeble as to be obliterated by compensations of a more
or less trifling kind. When we come to a stage of civilization like
that represented by Persians and other Orientals, or by the ancient
Greeks, we find that men are indeed no longer willing to lend their
wives. They seem to have a regard for chastity and a desire for
conjugal monopoly. Other important traits of modern jealousy are,
however, still lacking, notably affection. The punishments are
hideously cruel; they are still inflicted "in hate, not in love." In
other words, the jealousy is not yet of the kind which may form an
ingredient of love. Its essence is still "bloody thoughts and
revenge."

Reich cites (256) a typical instance of Oriental ferocity toward an
erring wife, from a book by J.J. Strauss, who relates that on June 9,
1671, a Persian avenged himself on his wife for a trespass by flaying
her alive, and then, as a warning to other women, hanging up her skin
in the house. Strauss saw with his own eyes how the flayed body was
thrown into the street and dragged out into a field. Drowning in
sacks, throwing from towers, and other fiendish modes of vengeance
have prevailed in Persia as far back as historic records go; and the
women, when they got a chance, were no better than the men. Herodotus
relates how the wife of Xerxes, having found her husband's cloak in
the house of Masista, cut off his wife's breasts and gave them to the
dogs, besides mutilating her otherwise, as well as her daughter.

The monogamous Greeks were not often guilty of such atrocities, but
their custom (nearly universal and not confined to Athens, as is often
erroneously stated) of locking up their women in the interior of the
houses, shutting them off from almost everything that makes life
interesting, betrays a kind of jealousy hardly less selfish than that
of the savages who disposed of their wives as they pleased. It
practically made slaves and prisoners of them, quite in the Oriental
style. Such a custom indicates an utter lack of sympathy and
tenderness, not to speak of the more romantic ingredients of love,
such as adoration and gallantry; and it implies a supreme contempt for
and distrust of, character in wives, all the more reprehensible
because the Greeks did not value purity _per se_ but only for
genealogical reason, as is proved by the honors they paid to the
disreputable hetairai. There are surprisingly few references to
masculine jealousy in Greek erotic literature. The typical Greek lover
seems to have taken rivalry as blandly as the hero of Terence's play
spoken of in the last chapter, who, after various outbursts of
sentimentality, is persuaded, in a speech of a dozen lines, to share
his mistress with a rich officer. Nor can I see anything but maudlin
sentimentality in such conceits as Meleager utters in two of his poems
(_Anthology_, 88, 93) in which he expresses jealousy of sleep, for its
privilege of closing his mistress's eyes; and again of the flies which
suck her blood and interrupt her slumber. The girl referred to is
Zenophila, a common wanton (see No. 90). This is the sensual side of
the Greek jealousy, chastity being out of the question.

The purely genealogical side of Greek masculine jealousy is strikingly
revealed in the _Medea_ of Euripides. Medea had, after slaying her own
brother, left her country to go with Jason to Corinth. Here Jason,
though he had two children by her, married the daughter of the King
Creon. With brutal frankness, but quite in accordance with the selfish
Greek ideas, he tries to explain to Medea the motives for his second
marriage: that they might all dwell in comfort instead of suffering
want,

"and that I might rear my sons as doth befit my house;
further, that I might be the father of brothers for the
children thou hast borne, and raise these to the same
high rank, uniting the family in one--_to my lasting
bliss_. Thou, indeed, hast no need of more children,
but me it profits to help my present family by that
which is to be. Have I miscarried here? Not even thou
wouldst say so unless a rival's charms rankled in thy
bosom. No, but you women have such strange ideas, that
you think all is well so long as your married life runs
smooth; but if some mischance occur to ruffle your
love, all that was good and lovely erst you reckon as
your foes. Yea, men should have begotten children from
some other source, no female race existing; thus would
no evil ever have fallen on mankind."

Jason, Greek-fashion, looked upon a woman's jealousy as mere unbridled
lust, which must not be allowed to stand in the way of the men's
selfish desire to secure filial worship of their precious shades after
death. As Benecke remarks (56): "For a woman to wish to keep her
husband to herself was a sign that she was at once unreasonable and
lascivious." The women themselves were trained and persuaded to take
this view. The chorus of Corinthian women admonishes Medea: "And if
thy lord prefers a fresh love, be not angered with him for that; Zeus
will judge 'twixt thee and him herein." Medea herself says to Jason:
"Hadst thou been childless still, I could have pardoned thy desire for
this new union." And again: "Hadst thou not had a villain's heart,
thou shouldst have gained my consent, then made this match, instead of
hiding it from those who loved thee"--a sentiment which would seem to
us astounding and inexplicable had we not became familiar with it in
the preceding pages relating to savages and barbarians, by whom what
we call infidelity was considered unobjectionable, provided it was not
done secretly.

By her subsequent actions Medea shows in other ways that her jealousy
is entirely of the primitive sort--fiendish revenge proceeding from
hate. Of the chorus she asks but one favor: "Silence, if haply I can
some way or means devise to _avenge_ me on my husband for this cruel
treatment;" and the chorus agrees: "Thou wilt be taking a just
vengeance on thy husband, Medea." Creon, having heard that she had
threatened with mischief not only Jason but his bride and her father,
wants her to leave the city. She replies, hypocritically:

"Fear me not, Creon, my position scarce is such that I
should seek to quarrel with princes. Why should I, for how
hast thou injured me? Thou hast betrothed thy daughter where
thy fancy prompted thee. No, 'tis my husband I hate."

But as soon as the king has left her, she sends to the innocent bride
a present of a beautifully embroidered robe, poisoned by witchcraft.
As soon as the bride has put it on she turns pale, foam issues from
her mouth, her eyeballs roll in their sockets, a flame encircles her,
preying on her flesh. With an awful shriek she sinks to the earth,
past all recognition save to the eye of her father, who folds her in
his arms, crying, "Who is robbing me of thee, old as I am and ripe for
death? Oh, my child! would I could die with thee!" And his wish is
granted, for he

"found himself held fast by the fine-spun robe...and then ensued
a fearful struggle. He strove to rise but she still held him
back; and if ever he pulled with all his might, from off his
bones his aged flesh he tore. At last he gave it up, and breathed
forth his soul in awful suffering; for he could no longer master
the pain."

Not content with this, Medea cruelly slays Jason's children--her own
flesh and blood--not in a frenzied impulse, for she has meditated that
from the beginning, but to further glut her revengeful spirit. "I did
it," she says to Jason, "to vex thy heart." And when she hears of the
effect of the garment she had sent to his bride, she implores the
messenger, "Be not so hasty, friend, but tell the manner of her death,
for thou wouldst give me double joy, if so they perished miserably."


PRIMITIVE FEMININE JEALOUSY

A passion of which such horrors are a possible outcome may well have
led Euripides to write: "Ah me! ah me! to mortal man how dread a
scourge is love!" But this passion is not love, or part of love. The
horrors of such "jealousy" are often witnessed in modern life, but not
where true love--affection--ever had its abode. It is the jealousy of
the savage, which still survives, as other low phases of sexual
passion do. The records of missionaries and others who have dwelt
among savages contain examples of deeds as foul, as irrational, as
vindictive as Medea's; deeds in which, as in the play of Euripides,
the fury is vented on innocent victims, while the real culprit escapes
with his life and sometimes even derives amusement from the situation.
In _Oneota_ (187-90), Schoolcraft relates the story of an Indian's
wife who entered the lodge when his new bride was sitting by his side
and plunged a dagger in her heart. Among the Fuegians Bove found (131)
that in polygamous households many a young favorite lost her life
through the fury of the other wives. More frequently this kind of
jealousy vents itself in mutilations. Williams, in his book on the
Fijians (152), relates that one day a native woman was asked, "How is
it that so many of you women are without a nose?" The answer was: "It
grows out of a plurality of wives. Jealousy causes hatred, and then
the stronger tries to cut or bite off the nose of the one she hates,"
He also relates a case where a wife, jealous of a younger favorite,
"pounced on her, and tore her sadly with nails and teeth, and injured
her mouth by attempting to slit it open," A woman who had for two
years been a member of a polygamous family told Williams that
contentions among the women were endless, that they knew no comfort,
that the bitterest hatred prevailed, while mutual cursings and
recriminations were of daily occurrence. When one of the wives is so
unfortunate as to fall under the husband's displeasure too, the others
"fall upon her, cuffing, kicking, scratching, and even trampling on
the poor creature, so unmercifully as to leave her half dead." Bourne
writes (89), that Patagonian women sometimes "fight like tigers.
Jealousy is a frequent occasion. If a squaw suspects her liege lord of
undue familiarity with a rival, she darts upon the fair enchantress
with the fury of a wild beast; then ensues such a pounding,
scratching, hair-pulling, as beggars description." Meanwhile the gay
deceiver stands at a safe distance, chuckling at the fun. The
licentiousness of these Indians, he says, is equal to their cruelty.
Powers (238) gives this graphic picture of a domestic scene common
among the Wintun Indians of California. A chief, he says, may have two
or more wives, but the attempt to introduce a second frequently leads
to a fight.

"The two women dispute for the supremacy, often in a
desperate pitched battle with sharp stones, seconded by
their respective friends. They maul each other's faces
with savage violence, and if one is knocked down her
friends assist her to regain her feet, and the brutal
combat is renewed until one or the other is driven from
the wigwam. The husband stands by and looks placidly
on, and when all is over he accepts the situation,
retaining in his lodge the woman who has conquered the
territory."


ABSENCE OF FEMININE JEALOUSY

As a rule, however, there is more bark than bite in the conduct of the
wives of a polygamous household, as is proved by the ease with which
the husband, if he cares to, can with words or presents overcome the
objections of his first wife to new-comers; even, for instance, in the
case of such advanced barbarians as the Omaha Indians, who are said to
have actually allowed a wife to punish a faithless husband--an
exception so rare as to be almost incredible. Dorsey says of the
Omahas (26):

"When a man wishes to take a second wife he always
consults his first wife, reasoning thus with her: 'I
wish you to have less work to do, so I think of taking
your sister, your aunt, or your brother's daughter for
my wife. You can then have her to aid you with your
work.' Should the first wife refuse, the man cannot
marry the other woman. Generally no objection is
offered, if the second woman be one of the kindred of
the first wife. Sometimes the wife will make the
proposition to her husband: 'I wish you to marry my
brother's daughter, as she and I are one flesh.'"

Concerning the inhabitants of the Philippine island of Mindanao, a
German writer says (_Zeit. für Ethn_., 1885, 12):

"The wives are in no way jealous of one another; on the
contrary, they are glad to get a new companion, as that
enables them to share their work with another."

Schwaner says of the Borneans that if a man takes a second wife he
pays to the first the _batu saki_, amounting to from sixty to one
hundred guilders, and moreover he gives her presents, consisting of
clothes, "in order to appease her completely," In reference to the
tribes of Western Washington and Northwestern Oregon, Gibbs says
(198):

"The accession of a new wife in the lodge very
naturally produces jealousy and discord, and the first
often returns for a time in dudgeon to her friends, to
be reclaimed by her husband when he chooses, perhaps
after propitiating her by some presents."

Such instances might be multiplied _ad libitum_.

In a still larger number of cases primitive woman's objection to
rivals is easily overcome by the desire for the social position,
wealth, and comfort which polygamy confers. I have already cited, in
the chapter on Honorable Polygamy, a number of typical incidents
showing how vanity, the desire to belong to a man who can afford
several wives, or the wish to share the hard domestic or field work
with others, often smothers the feeling of jealousy so completely that
wives laugh at the idea of having their husbands all to themselves,
beg them to choose other companions, or even use their own hard-earned
money to buy them for their husbands. As this point is of exceptional
importance, as evidencing radical changes in the ideas relating to
sexual relations--and the resulting feelings themselves--further
evidence is admissible.

Of the Plains Indians in general Colonel Dodge remarks (20):

"Jealousy would seem to have no place in the
composition of an Indian woman, and many prefer to be,
even for a time, the favorite of a man who already has
a wife or wives, and who is known to be a good husband
and provider, rather than tempt the precarious chances
of an untried man."

And again:

"I have known several Indians of middle age, with already
numerous wives and children, who were such favorites with
the sex that they might have increased their number of wives
to an unlimited extent had they been so disposed, and this,
too, from among the very nicest girls of the tribe."

E.R. Smith, in his book on the Araucanians (213-14) tells of a Mapuché
wife who, when he saw her,

"was frequently accompanied by a younger and handsomer
woman than herself, whom she pointed out, with evident
satisfaction, as her 'other self'--that is, her
husband's wife number two, a recent addition to the
family. Far from being dissatisfied, or entertaining
any jealousy toward the newcomer, she said that she
wished her husband would marry again; for she
considered it a great relief to have someone to assist
her in her household duties and in the maintenance of
her husband."

McLean, who spent twenty-five years among the Tacullies and other
Indians of the Hudson Bay region, says (301) that while polygamy
prevails "the most perfect harmony seems to subsist among them."
Hunter, who knew the Missouri and Arkansas Indians well, says (255)
that "jealousy is a passion but little known, and much less indulged,
among the Indians." In cases of polygamy the wives have their own
lodges, separated by a short distance. They "occasionally visit each
other, and generally live on the most friendly terms." But even this
separation is not necessary, as we see from Catlin, who relates (I.,
119) that among the Mandans it is common to see six or eight wives of
a chief or medicine man "living under one roof, and all apparently
quiet and contented."

In an article on the Zulus (_Humanitarian_, March, 1897), Miss Colenso
refers to the fact that while polygamy is the custom, each wife has
her own hut, wherefore

"you have none of the petty jealousies and quarrelling
which distinguish the harems of the East, among the
Zulu women, who, as a rule, are most friendly to each
other, and the many wives of a great chief will live in
a little colony of huts, each mistress in her own house
and family, and interchanging friendly visits with the
other ladies similarly situated."

But in Africa, too, separation is not essential to secure a peaceful
result. Paulitschke (_B.E.A.S_., 30) reports that among the Somali
polygamy is customary, two wives being frequent, and he adds that "the
wives live together in harmony and have their household in common."
Among the Abyssinian Arabs, Sir Samuel Baker found (127) that
"concubinage is not considered a breach of morality; neither is it
regarded by the legitimate wives with jealousy." Chillié (_Centr.
Afr_., 158), says of the Landamas and Nalous: "It is very remarkable
that good order and perfect harmony prevail among all these women who
are called to share the same conjugal couch." The same writer says of
the polygamous Foulahs (224):

"In general the women appear very happy, and by no
means jealous of each other, except when the husbands
make a present to one without giving anything to the
rest."

Note the last sentence; it casts a strong light on our problem. It
suggests that even where a semblance of jealousy is manifested by such
women it may often be an entirely different thing from the jealousy we
associate with love; envy, greed, or rivalry being more accurate terms
for it. Here is another instance in point. Drake, in his work on the
Indians of the United States has the following (I., 178):

"Where there is a plurality of wives, if one gets finer
goods than the others, there is sure to be some
quarrelling among the women; and if one or two of them
are not driven off, it is because the others have not
strength enough to do so. The man sits and looks on,
and lets the women fight it out. If the one he loves
most is driven off, he will go and stay with her, and
leave the others to shift for themselves awhile, until
they can behave better, as he says."

The Rev. Peter Jones gives this description (81) of a fight he
witnessed between the two wives of an Ojibway chief:

"The quarrel arose from the unequal distribution of a
loaf of bread between the children. The husband being
absent, the wife who had brought the bread to the
wigwam gave a piece of it to each child, but the best
and largest portion to her _own_. Such partiality
immediately led to a quarrel. The woman who brought the
bread threw the remainder in anger to the other; she as
quickly cast it back again; in this foolish way they
kept on for some time, till their fury rose to such a
height that they at length sprang at one another,
catching hold of the hair of the head; and when each
had uprooted a handful their ire seemed satisfied."

To make clear the difference between such ebullitions of temper and
the passion properly called jealousy, let us briefly sum up the
contents of this chapter. In its first stage it is a mere masculine
rage in presence of a rival. An Australian female in such a case
calmly goes off with the victor. A savage looks upon his wife, not as
a person having rights and feelings of her own, but as a piece of
property which he has stolen or bought, and may therefore do with
whatever he pleases. In the second stage, accordingly, women are
guarded like other movable property, infringement on which is fiercely
resented and avenged, though not from any jealous regard for chastity,
for the same husband who savagely punishes his wife for secret
adultery, willingly lends her to guests as a matter of hospitality, or
to others for a compensation. In some cases the husband's "wounded
feelings" may be cured by the payment of a fine, or subjecting the
culprit's wife to indignities. At a higher stage, where some regard is
paid to chastity--at least in the women reserved for genealogical
purposes--masculine jealousy is still of the sensual type, which leads
to the life-long imprisonment of women in order to enforce a fidelity
which in the absence of true love could not be secured otherwise. As
for the wives in primitive households, they often indulge in "jealous"
squabbles, but their passion, though it may lead to manifestations of
rage and to fierce and cruel fights, is after all only skin deep, for
it is easily overcome with soft words, presents, or the desire for the
social position and comfort which can be secured in the house of a man
who is wealthy enough to marry several women--especially if the
husband is rich and wise enough to keep the women in separate lodges;
though even that is often unnecessary.

There is no difficulty in understanding why primitive feminine
"jealousy," despite seeming exceptions, should have been so shallow
and transient a feeling. Everything conspired to make it so. From the
earliest times the men made systematic efforts to prevent the growth
of that passion in women because it interfered with their own selfish
desires. Hearne says of the women of the Northern Indians that "they
are kept so much in awe of their husbands, that the liberty of
thinking is the greatest privilege they enjoy" (310); and A.H. Keane
(_Journ. of Anthrop. Inst_., 1883) remarks that while the Botocudos
often indulge in fierce outbreaks of jealousy, "the women have not yet
acquired the right to be jealous, a sentiment implying a certain
degree of equality between the sexes." Everywhere the women were
taught to subordinate themselves to the men, and among the Hindoos as
among the Greeks, by the ancient Hebrews as well as by the mediaeval
Arabs freedom from jealousy was inculcated as a supreme virtue. Rachel
actually fancied she was doing a noble thing in giving her handmaids
to Jacob as concubines. Lane (246) quotes the Arab historian
El-Jabartee, who said of his first wife:

"Among her acts of conjugal piety and submission was
this that she used to buy for her husband beautiful
slave girls, with her own wealth, and deck them with
ornaments and apparel, and so present them to him
confidently looking to the reward and recompense which
she should receive [in Paradise] for such conduct."

"In case of failure of an heir," says Griffis, in his famous work on
Japan (557), "the husband is fully justified, often strongly advised
even by his wife, to take a handmaid to raise up seed to preserve
their ancestral line." A Persian instance is given by Ida Pfeiffer
(261), who was introduced at Tabreez to the wives of Behmen-Mirza,
concerning whom she writes:

"They presented to me the latest addition to the
harem--a plump brown little beauty of sixteen; and they
seemed to treat their new rival with great good nature
and told me how much trouble they had been taking to
teach her Persian."


JEALOUSY PURGED OF HATE

Casting back a glance over the ground traversed, we see that women as
well as men--primitive, ancient, oriental--were either strangers to
jealousy of any kind, or else knew it only as a species of anger,
hatred, cruelty, and selfish sensuality; never as an ingredient of
love. Australian women, Lumholtz tells us (203), "often have bitter
quarrels about men whom they love[19] and are anxious to marry. If the
husband is unfaithful, the wife frequently becomes greatly enraged."
As chastity is not by Australians regarded as a duty or a virtue, such
conduct can only be explained by referring to what Roth, for instance,
says (141) in regard to the Kalkadoon. Among these, where a man may
have as many as four or five wives,

"the discarded ones will often, through jealousy, fight with
her whom they consider more favored; on such occasions they
may often resort to stone-throwing, or even use fire-sticks
and stone-knives with which to mutilate the genitals."

Similarly, various cruel disfigurements of wives by husbands or other
wives, previously referred to as customary among savages, have their
motive in the desire to mar the charms of a rival or a disobedient
conjugal slave. The Indian chief who bites off an intriguing wife's
nose or lower lip takes, moreover, a cruel delight at sight of the
pain he inflicts--a delight of which he would be incapable were he
capable of love. To such an Indian, Shakspere's lines

But O, what damned minutes tells he o'er
Who dotes yet doubts, suspects, yet strongly loves,

would be as incomprehensible as a Beethoven symphony. With his usual
genius for condensation, Shakspere has in those two lines given the
essentials of true jealousy--suspicion causing agony rather than
anger, and proceeding from love, not from hate. The fear, distress,
humiliation, anguish of modern jealousy are in the mind of the injured
husband. He suffers torments, but has no wish to torment either of the
guilty ones. There are, indeed, even in civilized countries, husbands
who slay erring wives; but they are not civilized husbands: like
Othello, they still have the taint of the savage in them. Civilized
husbands resort to separation, not to mutilation or murder; and in
dismissing the guilty wife, they punish themselves more than her--for
she has shown by her actions that she does not love him and therefore
cannot feel the deepest pang of the separation. There is no anger, no
desire for revenge.

How comes this gentle concord in the world,
That hatred is so far from jealousy?

It comes in the world through love--through the fact that a man--or a
woman--who truly loves, cannot tolerate even the thought of punishing
one who has held first place in his or her affections. Modern law
emphasizes the essential point when it punishes adultery because of
"alienation of the affections."


A VIRTUOUS SIN

Thus, whereas the "jealousy" of the savage who is transported by his
sense of proprietorship to bloody deeds and to revenge is a most
ignoble passion, incompatible with love, the jealousy of modern
civilization has become a noble passion, justified by moral ideals and
affection--"a kind of godly jealousy which I beseech you call a
virtuous sin."

Where Love reigns, disturbing Jealousy
Doth call himself Affection's sentinel.

And let no one suppose that by purging itself of bloody violence,
hatred, and revenge, and becoming the sentinel of _affection_,
jealousy has lost any of its intensity. On the contrary, its depth is
quintupled. The bluster and fury of savage violence is only a
momentary ebullition of sensual passion, whereas the anguish of
jealousy as we feel it is

Agony unmix'd, _incessant_ gall,
Corroding every thought, and blasting all
Love's paradise.

Anguish of mind is infinitely more intense than mere physical pain,
and the more cultivated the mind, the deeper is its capacity for such
"agony unmix'd." Mental anguish doth, like a poisonous mineral, gnaw
the inwards, and create a condition in which "not poppy, nor
mandragora, nor all the drowsy syrups of the world shall ever
medicine" the victim to that sleep which he enjoyed before. His heart
is turned to stone; he strikes it and it hurts his hand. Trifles light
as air are proofs to him that his suspicions are realities, and life
is no longer worth living.

O now for ever
Farewell the tranquil mind! farewell content!
Farewell the plumed troop, and the big wars
That make ambition virtue!


ABNORMAL STATES

The assertion that modern jealousy is a noble passion is of course to
be taken with reservations. Where it leads to murder or revenge it is
a reversion to the barbarous type, and apart from that it is, like all
affections of the mind, liable to abnormal and morbid states. Harry
Campbell writes in the _Lancet_ (1898) that

"the inordinate development of this emotion always betokens a
neurotic diathesis, and not infrequently indicates the oncoming
of insanity. It is responsible for much useless suffering and not
a little actual disease."

Dr. O'Neill gives a curious example of the latter, in the same
periodical. He was summoned to a young woman who informed him that she
wished to be cured of jealousy: "I am jealous of my husband, and if
you do not give me something I shall go out of my mind." The husband
protested his innocence and declared there was no cause whatever for
her accusations:

"The wife persisted in reiterating them and so the
wrangle went on till suddenly she fell from her chair
on the floor in a fit, the spasmodic movements of which
were so strange and varied that it would be almost
impossible to describe them. At one moment the patient
was extended at full length with her body arched
forward in a state of opisthotonos. The next minute she
was in a sitting position with the legs drawn up,
making, while her hands clutched her throat, a guttural
noise. Then she would throw herself on her back and
thrust her arms and legs about to the no small danger
of those around her. Then becoming comparatively quiet
and supine she would quiver all over while her eyelids
trembled with great rapidity. This state perhaps would
be followed by general convulsive movements in which
she would put herself into the most grotesque postures
and make the most unlovely grimaces. At last the fit
ended, and exhausted and in tears she was put to bed.
The patient was a lithe, muscular woman and to restrain
her movements during the attack with the assistance at
hand was a matter of impossibility, so all that could
be done was to prevent her injuring herself and to
sprinkle her freely with cold water. The
after-treatment was more geographical than medical. The
husband ceased doing business in a certain town where
the object of his wife's suspicions lived."

I have been told by a perfectly healthy married woman that when
jealous of her husband she felt a sensation as of some liquid welling
up in her throat and suffocating her. Pride came into play in part;
she did not want others to think that her husband preferred an
ignorant girl to her--a woman of great physical and mental charm.

Such jealousy, if unfounded, may be of the "self-harming" kind of
which one of Shakspere's characters exclaims "Fie! beat it hence!" Too
often, however, women have cause for jealousy, as modern civilized man
has not overcome the polygamous instincts he has inherited from his
ancestors since time immemorial. But whereas cause for feminine
jealousy has existed always, the right to feel it is a modern
acquisition. Moreover, while Apache wives were chaste from fear and
Greek women from necessity, modern civilized women are faithful from
the sense of honor, duty, affection, and in return for their devotion
they expect men to be faithful for the same reasons. Their jealousy
has not yet become retrospective, like that of the men; but they
justly demand that after marriage men shall not fall below the
standard of purity they have set up for the women, and they insist on
a conjugal monopoly of the affections as strenuously as the men do. In
due course of time, as Dr. Campbell suggests, "we may expect the
monogamous instinct in man to be as powerful as in some of the lower
animals; and feminine jealousy will help to bring about this result;
for if women were indifferent on this point men would never improve."


JEALOUSY IN ROMANTIC LOVE

The jealousy of romantic love, preceding marriage, differs from the
jealousy of conjugal love in so far as there can be no claim to a
monopoly of affection where the very existence of any reciprocated
affection still remains in doubt. Before the engagement the uncertain
lover in presence of a rival is tortured by doubt, anxiety, fear,
despair, and he may violently hate the other man, though (as I know
from personal experience) not necessarily, feeling that the rival has
as much claim to the girl's attention as he has. Duels between rival
lovers are not only silly, but are an insult to the girl, to whom the
choice ought to be submitted and the verdict accepted manfully. A man
who shoots the girl herself, because she loves another and refuses
him, puts himself on a level below the lowest brute, and cannot plead
either true love or true jealousy as his excuse. After the engagement
the sense of monopoly and the consciousness of plighted troth enter
into the lover's feelings, and intruders are properly warded off with
indignation. In romantic jealousy the leading role is played by the
imagination; it loves to torture its victim by conjuring visions of
the beloved smiling on a rival, encircled by his arm, returning his
kisses. Everything feeds his suspicions; he is "dwelling in a
continual 'larum of jealousy." Oft his jealousy "shapes faults that
are not" and he taints his heart and brain with needless doubt. "Ten
thousand fears invented wild, ten thousand frantic views of horrid
rivals, hanging on the charms for which he melts in fondness, eat him
up." Such passion inflames love but corrodes the soul. In perfect
love, as I said at the beginning of this chapter, jealousy is
potential only, not actual.


IV. COYNESS

When a man is in love he wears his heart on his sleeve and feels eager
to have the beloved see how passionately it throbs for her. When a
girl is in love she tries to conceal her heart in the innermost
recesses of her bosom, lest the lover discover her feelings
prematurely. In other words, coyness is a trait of feminine love--the
only ingredient of that passion which is not, to some extent, common
to both sexes. "The cruel nymph well knows to feign, ... coy looks and
cold disdain," sang Gay; and "what value were there in the love of the
maiden, were it yielded without coy delay?" asks Scott.

'Tis ours to be forward and pushing;
'Tis yours to affect a disdain,

Lady Montagu makes a man say, and Richard Savage sings:

You love; yet from your lover's wish retire;
Doubt, yet discern; deny, and yet desire.
Such, Polly, are your sex--part truth, part fiction,
Some thought, much whim, and all a contradiction.

"Part truth, part fiction;" the girl romances regarding her feelings;
her romantic love is tinged with coyness. "She will rather die than
give any sign of affection," says Benedick of Beatrice; and in that
line Shakspere reveals one of the two essential traits of genuine
modern coyness--_dissemblance of feminine affection_.

Was coyness at all times an attribute of femininity, or is it an
artificial product of modern social conditions and culture? Is coyness
ever manifested apart from love, or does its presence prove the
presence of love? These two important questions are to be answered in
the present section.


WOMEN WHO WOO

The opinion prevails that everywhere and always the first advances
were made by the men, the women being passive, and coyly reserved.
This opinion--like many other notions regarding the relations of the
sexes--rests on ignorance, pure ignorance. In collecting the scattered
facts bearing on this subject I have been more and more surprised at
the number of exceptions to the rule, if, indeed, rule it be. Not only
are there tribes among whom women _must_ propose--as in the Torres
Straits Islands, north of Australia, and with the Garos of India,
concerning whom interesting details will be given in later chapters;
but among many other savages and barbarians the women, instead of
repelling advances, make them.

"In all Polynesia," says Gerland (VI., 127), "it was a common
occurrence that the women wooed the men." "A proposal of marriage,"
writes Gill (_Savage Life in Polynesia_, II.), "may emanate with
propriety from a woman of rank to an equal or an inferior." In an
article on Fijian poetry (731-53), Sir Arthur Gordon cites the
following native poem:

The girls of Vunivanua all had lovers,