Anastasia Gorban, group 501
Jealousy entails abuse
Jealousy is an emotion and typically refers to the negative thoughts and feelings of insecurity, fear, and anxiety over an anticipated loss of something that the person values, particularly in reference to a human connection. Jealousy often consists of a combination of presenting emotions such as anger, resentment, inadequacy, helplessness and disgust.
Different forms
There are many different types of jealousy that the human body can experience. Jealousy can be seen in everyday activities and settings. Jealousy is an intense emotion that is associated with the loss of services or outcomes associated with other individuals. This intense emotion can be seen or experienced in family situations, at work, in romantic relationships and even between friends.
Sibling rivalry – Sibling rivalry is a common form of family jealousy. Family jealousy can affect all ages and different members of any family. This jealousy can arise from lack of attention from a specific member in the family. More attention towards another member of the family can cause this emotion or the emotion can be seen through comparison to another member in the family. This type of jealousy is once again in result of losing some sort of attention or services that someone once had or that they believe that they had.
Workplace jealousy – Jealousy in the work place is not uncommon. People can experience jealousy of one another in practically any setting that one person feels like they are losing services from something or someone else. This type of jealousy is often seen between colleagues in similar job positions. If one worker receives positive feedback from the boss while the other employee feels like they deserved that, positive feedback jealousy can arise. Jealousy between colleagues can also arise if the employees are working for a raise or trying to outdo each other for similar job positions. Once again, the attention received towards one employee and not the other may cause intense emotions of jealousy to develop.
Platonic jealousy – Platonic jealousy is a form of jealousy that is seen in friendships. Platonic jealousy is similar to romantic jealousy in the way that this type of relationship can lead to jealousy in result of fear of being replaced, having competition or being compared to a third party. For example, the intense emotion of jealousy can arise if two friends that are females decide that they like the same man and both want to possibly start a romantic relationship with him. Comparison and competition will more often than not lead to the two females experiencing the emotion of jealousy.
Romantic jealousy – Romantic jealousy can be experienced in long-term or short-term relationships. One partner can feel the emotion of jealousy arise if the other partner is paying more attention to or spending more time with someone else. To lose services from one partner and have their attention directed towards someone else does not have to be in a romantic way. One partner could be spending more time with a friend that no romantic feelings could ever develop.
Sexual jealousy is an emotion of jealousy which may be triggered in a person when a sexual partner displays sexual interest in another person. It is based on a sexual partner's suspected or imminent sexual infidelity. Manifestations of sexual jealousy differ across cultures. For example, in one culture, an “involved” woman flirting with, dancing with or kissing another man may be considered infidelity, whereas in another culture such behavior would be considered sheer fun and acceptable. Psychologists describe various forms of sexual jealousy, including pathological jealousy, erotic jealousy, morbid jealousy, conjugal paranoia, jealous monomania, and psychotic/non-psychotic and obsessional jealousy.
Romantic and sexual jealousy
People do not express jealousy through a single emotion or a single behavior. They instead express jealousy through diverse emotions and behaviors, which makes it difficult to form a scientific definition of jealousy. Scientists still do not have a universally agreed upon definition of jealousy but instead define jealousy in their own words, as illustrated by the following examples:
"Romantic jealousy is here defined as a complex of thoughts, feelings, and actions which follow threats to self-esteem and/or threats to the existence or quality of the relationship, when those threats are generated by the perception of a real or potential attraction between one's partner and a (perhaps imaginary) rival." (White, 1981)
"Jealousy, then, is any aversive reaction that occurs as the result of a partner's extradyadic relationship that is real, imagined, or considered likely to occur." (Bringle & Buunk, 1991)
"Jealousy is conceptualized as a cognitive, emotional, and behavioral response to a relationship threat. In the case of sexual jealousy, this threat emanates from knowing or suspecting that one's partner has had (or desires to have) sexual activity with a third party. In the case of emotional jealousy, an individual feels threatened by her or his partner's emotional involvement with and/or love for a third party." (Guerrero, Spitzberg, & Yoshimura, 2004)
"Jealousy is defined as a protective reaction to a perceived threat to a valued relationship, arising from a situation in which the partner's involvement with an activity and/or another person is contrary to the jealous person's definition of their relationship." (Bevan, 2004)
"Jealousy is triggered by the threat of separation from, or loss of, a romantic partner, when that threat is attributed to the possibility of the partner's romantic interest in another person." (Sharpteen & Kirkpatrick, 1997)
These definitions of jealousy share two basic themes. First, all the definitions imply a triad composed of a jealous individual, a partner, and a perception of a third party or rival. Second, all the definitions describe jealousy as a reaction to a perceived threat to the relationship between two people, or a dyad. Jealous reactions typically involve aversive emotions and/or behaviors that are assumed to be protective for their attachment relationships. These themes form the essential meaning of jealousy in most scientific studies.
Debates over the issue
The issue of jealousy and abuse, connected with it, has been widely discussed and covered in mass media. As soon as many laws concerning domestic violence and spousal abuse came into force, women started reporting their cases to the police as the result of which they have become known to the society. Some cases still continue “decorating” first pages of newspapers, magazines and main pages of web-sites. Still it is not clear whether abuse is a matter of jealousy or a psychological disorder that can be and must be treated.
Arguments for:
“Jealousy hormone” can cause aggression.
With a reputation as the "love hormone," oxytocin has been linked to trust, empathy and generosity.
But new research suggests that oxytocin plays a role in jealousy and gloating as well.
"Subsequent to these findings, we assume that the hormone is an overall trigger for social sentiments: When the person's association is positive, oxytocin bolsters pro-social behaviors; when the association is negative, the hormone increases negative sentiments," Israeli researcher Simone Shamay-Tsoory, of the University of Haifa, said in a news release from the university.
Scientists have linked the hormone to feeling good. It's released during childbirth and when people have sex. Research has found that people who inhaled a man-made form of the hormone were more altruistic.
But in earlier research, Shamay-Tsoory had discovered that mice who inhaled oxytocin were more aggressive so she decided to figure out if the hormone might have the same effect on people.
To do that, she had 56 people inhale a man-made version of the hormone or a placebo. They then played game designed to encourage feelings of envy and gloating.
Those who had inhaled oxytocin reported higher levels of envy and gloating during the game than the others.
The Judaic scriptures warn people not to provoke jealousy.
According to Judaism, the jealous spouse may exact revenge.
He who commits adultery with a woman is void of understanding. He who does it destroys his own soul. He will get wounds and dishonor. His reproach will not be wiped away. For jealousy arouses the fury of the husband. He won’t spare in the day of vengeance. He won’t regard any ransom, neither will he rest content, though you give many gifts." (Book of Proverbs 6:32-35, World English Bible)
The destructive potential of male romantic jealousy may also underlie a ritual in the Mosaic laws that test the sexual fidelity of a wife. (Numbers 5:11-30, World English Bible) The ritual is triggered when a husband becomes jealous over a real or suspected sexual affair. The husband takes the wife to the temple priests. The temple priests mix a drink composed of dust from the temple floor and bitter water. The wife drinks the mixture. If the wife has been sexually unfaithful, the drink will cause the flesh to fall off her thighs and her body to bloat. If the wife has been sexually faithful, no harm will come to her and she will bear a child in the near future. The outcomes of this ritual are designed to appease the husband's jealousy. If the wife becomes ill, the husband can take satisfaction in the wife's punishment for her presumed guilt. If the wife does not become ill, the husband can take satisfaction in the wife's presumed fidelity and look forward to a new family member. This is a ritual of ancient Judaism. Many modern Jewish people do not practice all the rituals of ancient Judaism, such as the one just described.
People abuse their spouses to satisfy their ego.
Jealousy is a feeling that initially causes despair, sense of abandonment, grief, void only to a person who is jealous. Being egoistic by nature, people consider it unfair that they should suffer alone, therefore they either lay a great part of the problem on their partners or, being sure that their partner is the only person to blame for their psychological state, they abuse him to make him suffer too.
All men are possessive.
In animal kingdom to which a human being belongs male animals fight to mate with females. They are fighting for the right to carry on their genes. The dominant animal will be assured that when he dies his legacy will live on. Male Dawson's bees, for example, one of the world's largest bee species, are so aggressive that they kill each other en masse in a bid to mate with females.
Although people have gone through evolution process and have reached a greater level of emotional and psychological development, subconsciously in many situations we are still guided by instincts. That is why in human kingdom males continue fighting for females. As soon as they win and get a desired woman, they cannot stand any other individual of the same species near his female because she is destined to save his “clan” and pass his genes to a new generation. If there appear a danger, either real or hypothetical, to the implementation of this plan, his possessive feeling about someone he have won in a fair fight can cause rage and result in marital squabbles, wife battering or even wife killing.
In 2011 in Gomel a husband strangled his wife, hid her in the basement and reported about his missing wife to the police. As it turned out later, he could not have children and he gave his consent to her conceiving a child from another man. However, she fell in love with that man and filed for a divorce. Her husband couldn’t bear it and decided to get rid of his unfaithful wife.
Men want to control relationships.
Having won a woman, a man claims himself to be an alpha male, the most important person for his woman in the society. When he feels that there is a possibility that his wife will change her mind and for some reasons choose another person to live her life with, the man starts feeling that he has lost control over something that he has gained which leads to unstable psychological state. In order to let off the steam the man can verbally or physically abuse his woman.
Men put into their wives financial and emotional resources.
Beginning with the day of marriage when in Russia or Belarus a bridegroom should pay money or give alcohol to his bride’s relatives to see his bride and to marry her, he is committed to provide a respectable life to his wife and children by “investing” a lot of money and effort into them. Therefore, it is natural that he expects something in return and the simplest thing his wife can give to him is fidelity. In case he starts suspecting her and growing green with jealousy, he feels that he has spent all those resources in vain. Desperate and upset, he begins with rows, continues with screaming profanities and emotionally abusing his wife and finishes with physical or sexual abuse.
Lack of success with other women after divorce may cause morbid jealousy towards ex-wife.
The most evident demonstration here is the case of O.J. Simpson. After the divorce he had mane relationships but couldn’t still make a long-time commitment to any of them. He grew upset and started blaming his ex-wife. When Nicole, fed up with O.J.’s abuse and womanizing, left Simpson, he was beside himself and started stalking her. When she began to date another man, Keith Zlomsowitch, an executive of the Mezzaluna restaurant chain, Simpson began to follow her. According to Zlomsowitch’s grand jury testimony, on one occasion, he leaned over the table at a restaurant where Nicole and Zlomsowitch were having dinner and, staring hard announced, “I’m O.J. Simpson and she’s still my wife.” His jealous ranting showed up on a 911 tape on Oct. 25, 1993. Nicole had called the police after Simpson had kicked in the French doors at the back of the house. He taunts Nicole for calling the “police” and screams profanities at her.
Women are afraid to lose their men.
Women by their nature are homemakers. When there is a risk of her home being broken she can get furious and exercise abuse on her home destructors.
According to Greek mythology, Zeus, the leader of the gods on Mt. Olympus, frequently took lovers in addition to Hera. Hera in turn exacted jealous revenge against her romantic rivals.
Leto - When Hera discovered that Leto was pregnant and that Hera's husband, Zeus, was the father, she banned Leto from giving birth on "terra-firma", or the mainland, or any island at sea. Alternatively, Hera kidnapped Ilithyia, the goddess of childbirth, to prevent Leto from going into labour. The other gods forced Hera to let her go.
Callisto/Arcas - A follower of Artemis, Callisto took a vow to remain a virgin. But Zeus fell in love with her and disguised himself as Artemis in order to lure her into his embrace. Hera then turned Callisto into a bear out of revenge.
Semele/Dionysus - In one of various birth myths of him, Dionysus was a son of Zeus by a mortal woman. A jealous Hera again attempted to kill the child, this time by sending Titans to rip Dionysus to pieces after luring the baby with toys. Though Zeus drove the Titans away with his thunderbolts but only after the Titans ate everything but the heart, which was saved, variously, by Athena, Rhea, or Demeter.
Io - Hera almost caught Zeus with a mistress named Io, a fate avoided by Zeus turning Io into a beautiful white heifer. However, Hera was not completely fooled and demanded Zeus give her the heifer as a present. Once Io was given to Hera, she placed her in the charge of Argus to keep her separated from Zeus.
Lamia - Lamia was a queen of Libya, whom Zeus loved. Hera turned her into a monster and murdered their children. Or, alternately, she killed Lamia's children and the grief turned her into a monster. Lamia was cursed with the inability to close her eyes so that she would always obsess over the image of her dead children.
While Hera was trying to injure her man’s lovers, modern women blame their husbands for infidelity.
In 2012 a Brazilian woman confessed to shooting her husband, dismembering him and scattering the parts in a wooded area outside Sao Paulo. According to the police investigation, the reason for the murder had been a marital argument over infidelity.
Bearing the brunt of child production, a woman cannot let her man’s resources being spent on another woman.
After choosing a mate, females bear the brunt of child production. Not only does the woman have to produce and carry the baby, in a majority of cultures she remains responsible for raising him or her. Because offspring are at such a high cost for the female, the male’s resource contribution could mean life or death for her and her child, weighing significantly on her fitness potential. If a woman knows or suspects that her husband is being unfaithful, she will be more concerned that he is sharing his resources with another female, rather than making another baby. That is why in such cases a woman starts a campaign of verbal abuse.
Due to lack of attention, care and love children may abuse their siblings.
Some children seem to accept new siblings without problems, but others - no matter how well you have prepared them, and how much attention you give them - seem to become angry, even violent. Some toddlers try to hit or bite the new baby.
According to researchers, 14 percent of the children were repeatedly attacked by a sibling; 4.55 percent were hit hard enough to sustain injuries like bruises, cuts, chipped teeth and an occasional broken bone; and 2 percent were hit by brothers or sisters wielding rocks, toys, broom handles, shovels and even knives.
In 1980, when the sociologist Murray Straus of the University of New Hampshire published "Behind Closed Doors," a groundbreaking national study of family violence, he concluded that the sibling relationship was the most violent of human bonds. Judged strictly by counting blows, he was right: Straus and his colleagues found that 74 percent of a representative sample of children had pushed or shoved a sibling within the year and 42 percent had kicked, bitten or punched a brother or sister. (Only 3 percent of parents had attacked a child that violently, and only 3 percent of husbands had physically attacked their wives.)
All over the world there have been cases of sibling murders. Among them:
Ronald DeFeo, Jr. shot his two sisters, Allison and Dawn, in 1974.
Yuki Muto murdered his sister Azumi Muto on December 30, 2006 in Japan.
Jealous men may not see another way to “teach” fidelity to their wives.
Men who saw violence in the relationships of their parents are likely to follow this pattern and solve all the problems in their family lives with their fists. These men’s dependence on their wives is as important as their need to control them – if she even talks to another man, he thinks she’s leaving or sleeping around.
Many studies deal with battering as an afterfact of family abuse and as learned behaviour. Fully 80 per cent of the male participants in a Minneapolis, Minnesota violence-control programmes grew up in homes where they saw or were victims of physical, sexual, verbal or other abuse.
Men who are prone to solve their jealousy problems with the help of violence are likely to suffer from head traumas, personality disorders and psychological traumas.
Some researchers believe there is a physiological factor in domestic abuse. A study conducted by the University of Massachusetts Medical Center’s domestic-violence research and treatment center found, for instance, that 61 per cent of men involved in marital violence have signs of severe head trauma. The typical injuries involve the frontal lobe,” says Al Rosenbaum, the center’s director. “The areas we suspect are injured are those involved in impulse control, and reduce and individual’s ability to control aggressive impulses.”
Some kings who suffered from psychological disorders killed their wives for the reasons of jealousy. Henry VIII, according to some researches, had syphilis and he couldn’t handle it as he wanted to have an heir but many of his children were born dead. That caused a deep psychological wound and, as a result, unwillingness to put up with any act of infidelity. His second wife, Anne Boleyn, was beheaded in the Tower for infidelity. His fifth wife Catherine Howard was also executed for the same reason.
Arguments against: