Dissecting The Green Eyed Monster

What is it that brings about those evil feelings that we label "greed", "avarice", "hate", "sin", "envy"? Are these feelings constitutional and rooted in our base humanness? Are they generated by primitive need states such as fear or anger? Can we look into these in such a manner as to make our lives less stressful and manageable? Let's examine just one of these; envy, or as we might more feel it, jealousy.

Jealousy raises its ugly head in our irresolute psyche almost without warning. How jealousy originates tends to follow changing attitudes in popular culture or philosophy. From early in the century until into the 1950's, jealousy, particularly of one's chosen partner, was widely seen as a healthy expression of normal love and the expectations of cherishing and exclusivity. In the '60's and into the "70's, these feelings began to be regarded as pathological reactions resulting from new identifications of freedom, particularly sexual, independence, and purposefulness of self. By the '80's and on towards the end of the century, new expressions of our jealous nature have been identified in racial and civil violence, political and economic discord, and the increasing rebellion of youth and adolescents. Perhaps, we now see three separate versions of the mechanisms of jealousy manifested as a human characteristic response.

The socio-biological view
Jealousy is in our genetic nature and is evolutionary adaptive. The male animal is driven to keep his genes alive in the pool, so is antagonistic to any force or element (basically another male of the same species) that tends toward disrupting this. The human manifests this in possessiveness and exclusivity in his mating partner and expects that also of his partner. The partner transcends this into a responsiveness toward this need and the benefits of protection, child rearing assistance (even if this is only monetary), and the stability of a nesting (home) situation. This nutshell reduction only highlights the rudiments of this view and discards many other human motivational forces.

The sexual-revolutionary view
When sexual freedom signaled the end to the usual claims for exclusivity, jealousy emerged as a lamentable hanger-on from the earlier time when female partners were regarded as a personal property (chattel) and extensions of the male province. Jealousy came to be seem as a negative trait with roots in unhealthy patterns of human development and as such, seen as a symptom of pathological behavior and adaptation. No more was possessiveness, ownership, or external control to be condoned. Jealous "fits" were simply childish responses to fear of loss, negative self-esteem, or delayed gratification. Treatment was needed to achieve the adjust necessary to abolish these bad thoughts and behaviors.

The feminist/liberated view
The feminists centered jealousy in the male ego. Men want to control and dominate women. They viewed their women as exclusively theirs and thought to contain them economically, socially, sexually, so were very threatened by any attempt to challenge this. By keeping their women to themselves, they could avoid the demands of jealousy, viz., outrage, anger, emotional and physical responses, as well as the confrontations of imposing males. Because of the emerging needs of women, jealousy is built into relationships. Many women feed this by being unsure of their role or power and reflecting some degree of insecurity which leads to misusing their emotional strength. Perhaps many men are also affected this way, but their options for resolving this appear somewhat different.

With these three orientations in mind we can explore some interpretations of recognized writers. Nancy Friday, in her book, My Mother/Myself reveals that she equated jealousy with fear of losing a loved one and considered loss as defeat. Much of her emotional energy was channeled into avoiding defeat rather than enjoying victory. In examining this, Friday developed a more comprehensive view provided in her more recent book, aptly entitled, Jealousy. Some of the concepts in this book originate with the pioneering psychoanalyst, Melanie Klein. Klein taught that that jealousy was constitutional and developed in infancy. The mother, with closeness and intimacy, encouraged envy of the mother's power and jealousy of siblings and others who might restrict the infant's ego needs. Klein, Willard Gaylin, Peter Durig, and other producers of conventional psycho-social literature tie jealousy to low-self-esteem: those who feel they are not measuring up to expectations for them tend to exaggerate the possibility of the loss of loved ones to the affections of others. Gaylin reflects that obsessive jealousy causes one to walk through a minefield where every step is danger. Friday seems to favor the feminist/liberated view as a major explanation of relationship difficulties, but is eclectic enough to agree with points in the other basic views. However, she uses her own personal reference and experiences to support her comments and whether these are wide-spread.

Jealousy seems most apt to wreck disastrous results with respect to one's strongest aspirations or interests, be it wealth, fame, power, or someone's love or acclaim. Jealous feelings tend to mount stronger when one's goals are unrealistically set too high. Survey results reported in Psychology Today found substantial discrepancies between how subjects perceived themselves and how they would like to be seen. Fear of loss of love objects produce the most jealous behaviors. Carefully examining and guarding one's behavior in respect to meeting love needs might be the best source for effectively dealing with jealousy and it's unfavorable consequences.