Page:The rights of women and the sexual relations.djvu/84

68 poor an opinion not only of the male but even of the female sex that they believe every woman at every moment capable of what they themselves have looked for among all and have found among the most unfortunate, the prostitutes.

When jealousy is justifiable, it generally is so among women. A woman whose early confidence has been shaken by special signs, and who is now tormented by constant anxiety, without attaining to any certainty about the infidelity of the man she loves, is in a position deserving deepest sympathy and no reproach. But she also is suffering from the perversity of. conditions which make hypocrites of her husband and his accomplices.

The most objectionable thing about jealousy is that it attempts to fetter the person against whom it is directed, that it would deprive him of freedom of action, of the right of free control over himself. This despotism of jealousy is connected with marriage, as it has been hitherto, and with the legal inequality of the sexes. If the sexual union of two sovereign individuals is actually made into a relation of serfdom, it is but natural that especially the stronger party will presume to punish the emancipation of the other as a crime. Hence the brutality of vulgar husbands, who, after having in every possible and intolerable manner forfeited their wife's love, believe themselves justified in killing her when her precious lord has become revolting to her and another one pleases