Psychologists use several terms to describe the various forms of sexual jealousy, including pathological jealousy, erotic jealousy, morbid jealousy, conjugal paranoia, jealous monomania, and psychotic/non-psychotic and obsessional jealousy.I had a great uncle who suffered the consequences of the local law that lets a husband kill a man found in bed with his wife. For 50 years I was told that the great uncle was killed by an anonymous member of a hated ethnic minority. But the truth came out many years later. He was killed by an outraged husband. So I not only understand the above story of sexual jealousy. I also had a rub-your-nose-in-it experience with racism and how an underclass is blamed for non-existent crimes. That's another "foible" of people. They love to blame "the other", expecially an oppressed minority, for their ills. This spreads the racism on the back of a lie. Tragic.
Jealousy is seen in all human societies, and field studies of wild primates have shown that sexual jealousy is not peculiar to humans. Sexual jealousy, control and coercion are especially common in primate species where males control harems of females, such as langurs, baboons and gorillas.
Because sexual jealousy is universal, human societies have established baselines of behavioural jealousy that are widely tolerated and accepted as "natural". (In Texas, up until 1974, if a man found his wife in bed with her lover it was considered "reasonable" for him to shoot them both dead.)
However, a turn of the screw beyond this socially accepted level of sexual jealousy we start to see behaviour that teeters on the edge of obsession. Any intensification from this point onwards and the jealousy can be considered pathological.
A further increase in intensity and the jealousy becomes delusional, where the jealous partner is convinced their accusations of infidelity are correct. This is sometimes referred to as Othello syndrome. This form can further intensify with aggressive, unjustified interrogations and excessive sexual demands. The delusional behaviour may continue for years and is a likely manifestation of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). No amount of reassurance, pleading or begging will placate the paranoid delusional spouse.
Sexual jealousy is the most common motive for a man killing his sexual partner. It appears to be behind the attempted murder of Samantha Stobbart and the murder of her partner. At the time of writing the suspected gunman and former boyfriend of Stobbart, Raoul Moat, is still at large.
It has been theorised that a mate-killing module has evolved in the brain to control females and restore the social status of the cuckolded male. In some Muslim societies females live in fear of an accusation of infidelity and subsequent "honour killing". Female langur monkeys live in fear of new males taking control of the troop by force and killing their babies. Violent acts by controlling males have, over aeons of evolution, ensured that the genes of these males are passed on to the next generation.
In modern human society, however, it is clear that much of this evolved behaviour is counterproductive. Would a rational male deliberately physically and psychologically damage his spouse and the mother of his children? The future success of the next generation hangs in the balance when a jealous, patriarchal male uses aggression to control the females in his life.
Most people would find the idea of a man increasing his reproductive fitness at the expense of the happiness of his spouse and an infant abhorrent. A woman sexually coerced and harassed by a jealous partner will not make a good mother, so a jealous male only harms himself when he harms his family.
I found that education didn't "cure" racism in my family. Just time & death. As the older generation died out, the racism has slowly died out. Another lesson in life: you can't teach an old dog new tricks. But you can save the younger generation from the prejudices of the older generation.
No comments:
Post a Comment