Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 Sex in...

"Viewed broadly," says Arnold L. Gesell, in his interesting study of "Jealousy" (American Journal of Psychology, Oct., 1906), "jealousy seems such a necessary psychological accompaniment to biological behavior, amidst competitive struggle, that one is tempted to consider it genetically among the oldest of the emotions, synonymous almost with the will to live, and to make it scarcely less fundamental than fear or anger. In fact, jealousy readily passes into anger, and is itself a brand of fear.... In sociability and mutual aid we see the other side of the shield; but jealousy, however anti-social it may be, retains a function in zoölogical economy: viz., to conserve the individual as against the group. It is Nature's great corrective for the purely social emotions."

Jealousy among lower races may be disguised or modified by tribal customs. Thus Rasmussen (People of the Polar North, p. 65) says in reference to the Eskimo custom of wife-exchange: "A man once told me that he only beat his wife when she would not receive other men. She would have nothing to do with anyone but him—and that was her only failing!" Rasmussen elsewhere shows that the Eskimo are capable of extreme jealousy.

Jealousy is notoriously common among drunkards. As K. Birnbaum points out ("Das Sexualleben der Alkokolisten," Sexual-Probleme, Jan., 1909), this jealousy is, in most cases, more or less well-founded, for the wife, disgusted with her husband, naturally seeks sympathy and companionship elsewhere. Alcoholic jealousy, however, goes far beyond its basis of support in fact, and is entangled with delusions and hallucinations. (See e.g., G. Dumas, "La Logique d'un Dément," Revue Philosophique, Feb., 1908; also Stefanowski, "Morbid Jealousy," Alienist and Neurologist, July, 1893.)

Schrempf points out ("Von Stella zu Klärchen," Mutterschutz, 1906, Heft 7, p. 264) that Goethe strove to show in Egmont that a woman is repelled by the love of a man who knows nothing beyond his love to her, and that it is easy for her to devote herself to the man whose aims lie in the larger world beyond herself. There is profound truth in this view.

There are no doubt important exceptions. Thus Mérimée's famous friendship with Mlle. Jenny Dacquin, enshrined in the Lettres à une Inconnue, was perhaps Platonic throughout on Mérimée's side, Mlle. Dacquin adapting herself to his attitude. Cf. A. Lefebvre, La Célèbre Inconnue de Mérimée, 1908.

The love-letters of all these distinguished persons have been published. Rosa Mayreder (Zur Kritik der Weiblichkeit, pp. 229 et seq.) discusses the question of the humble and absolute manner in which even men of the most masculine and impetuous genius abandon themselves to the inspiration of the beloved woman. The case of the Brownings, who have been termed "the hero and heroine of the most wonderful love-story that the world knows of," is specially notable; (Ellen Key has written of the Brownings from this point of view in Menschen, and reference may be made to an article on the Brownings' love-letters in the Edinburgh Review, April, 1899). It is scarcely necessary to add that an erotic relationship may mean very much to persons of high intellectual ability, even when its issue is not happy; of Mary Wollstonecraft, one of the most intellectually distinguished of women, it may be said that the letters which enshrine her love to the worthless Imlay are among the most passionate and pathetic love-letters in English.