Conjugial Love (Acton) n. 379

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379. XIV. THAT JEALOUSY WITH MEN AND HUSBANDS IS DIFFERENT FROM JEALOUSY WITH WOMEN AND WIVES. The differences, however, cannot be distinctly set forth; for with married partners, jealousy is of one kind with those who love each other spiritually, of another with those who love each other only naturally, of another with those who are of dissident minds, and of another with one who has subjected the other to the yoke of obedience. Considered in themselves, manly and wifely jealousy are different, being from different origins. The origin of manly jealousy is in the understanding, but that of wifely jealousy is in the will applied to the understanding of their men. Therefore, manly jealousy is as a flame of wrath and anger, but wifely jealousy is as a fire restrained by a variety of fears, a variety of attitudes to the husband, a variety of regards to her own love, and a variety in her prudence in not disclosing this love to the husband by jealousy. These two kinds of jealousy are distinguished, because wives are loves and men are recipients; and to wives it is obnoxious to be prodigal* of their love before their men, but not so to the recipients of that love before their wives. It is different with the spiritual. [2] With these, the man's jealousy is transferred to the wife, just as the wife's love is transferred to the man. Therefore, in both, the jealousy against the attempts of a violator appears to be the same; but the Wife's jealousy against the attempts of a harlot violator is inspired in the man as grief weeping and moving the conscience. * The Latin has disperdere (to destroy), but clearly this is a misprint for dispendere, as in the translation.


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