CHAPTER XVIII
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.
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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!'