Page:The rights of women and the sexual relations.djvu/83

Rh attention to the fact that even animals are jealous. Do the animals then possess self-esteem? If I understood the questioner rightly, she meant to say that whoever esteemed himself could not bear to be neglected by the beloved person in favor of a third. But it seems to me that in such a case self-esteem would not dictate jealousy, but rather withdrawal from a relation in which the interest taken in a third person plainly shows us that we are no longer wanted.

Another lady-friend writes me that jealousy always made her indignant; either two persons were guaranteed to each other by love, and then there was no need of watching each other with Arguseyes, or love did not exist, and then there ought to be a separation; should her husband torment her with jealousy, she would look at it as a want of confidence, as an insult, as a disparagement of herself.

I for my part can understand jealousy, but not, as it were, expound it. It is a passion with which precisely those are most afflicted who are the least worthy of love. An innocent maiden who enters marriage will not dream of getting jealous; but all her innocence cannot secure her against the jealousy of her husband if he has been a libertine. Those are wont to be the most jealous who have the consciousness that they themselves are most deserving of jealousy. Most men in consequence of their present education and corruption have so