How Should We Interpret Jealousy?

30.08.2012 | By: Alex F.

How is jealousy explained by experts? What is the relationship between jealousy and love?

Jealousy eats you up. It’s definitely not a healthy emotion, but it’s difficult to avoid it. (PhotoXpress)

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Sociological research on jealousy

Research on jealousy requires sociologists to study the role of jealousy in society and in relationships among its members. Ralph B. Hupka claims in his essay “Cultural Determinants of Jealousy” that no society can whollly avoid this phenomenon - an individual feeling threatened when faced with certain other individuals. When it comes to jealousy, particular social models influence the experience only to a small extent.

The author believes that emotions and emotional reactions, as well as the overall functioning of a human being, have become part of the social environment. Before jealousy is aroused, you have to learn to value a romantic relationship.

Jealousy is something we learn to feel

O'Neill explains that jealousy is primarily a learned response defined by the views and attitudes of a particular society. However, it isn’t wholly a trained behavioural response. If jealousy is very rare in some cultures, such as Eskimo, and if it’s hardly known in the tribe Toda in India, this doesn't mean it's totally absent. In our culture, it’s of course a widely familiar phenomenon.

Jealousy is linked to specific sexual habits

Jealousy is closely associated with sex habits of a particular culture. As most reports on sexual habits don’t discuss emotions, or jealousy in particular, it’s almost impossible to determine when do situations involve jealousy, or if customs and traditions of a particular place are really taken into account when discussing this subject, say Lutz and White.

Understanding jealousy

- The Shona people of Zimbabwe believe that jealousy prevents the death of children.

- In the Toda tribe of India, a married person can have a lover, which doesn’t cause any jealousy, but a sexual relationship that a woman establishes with a man outside her tribe is still the cause of fierce jealousy.

- The Spanish in Andalusia believe that jealousy upholds the honor of a man in the eyes of his community (Pitt-Rivers).

- In the Yanomami tribe, it’s more important for a man to redeem himself by offering gifts and hospitality to her wife’s lover than to be worried about her infidelity (Harris).

- The Bakongo tribe of Africa has a rule that a man has to pay "rent" for the ‘use of a wife’ to her husband. If he can’t pay it he has to work in the husband’s field. The rent depends on the duration of the relationship and the wife’s "value", which is determined by her husband (Weeks).

- The Plateau tribes of Zimbabwe believe that the death of a child or mother during delivery is a sign of adultery. When the mother or the child are dying during delivery, the mother is asked to reveal the name of her lover, who’s also the guilty party (Gouldsbury-Sheane).

- The members of the Yao tribe of Africa believe that the husband’s infidelity before or during pregnancy can cause injuries to the mother or the baby (White-Mullen).

- Any two couples from the Ammassalik tribe of Greenland can arrange the exchange of partners. It’s important to perform the ritual of “Putting Out the Lamps.” A man always allows another man to have sexual intercourse with his wife, but he has to extinguish the lamp in the house before indulging in intercourse (Mead, Mirsky).

Apart from the different meanings of jealousy in different societies (what is jealousy deemed to preserve, e.g. children's lives, men’s honor, the honor of a tribe), the aforementioned examples also show different attitudes towards monogamous and polygamous sexual relations. Jealousy is much stronger in societies based on a monogamous form of marriage. K. Davis goes even further by saying that individuals are encouraged by their society to react to their partner’s infidelity with anger and a wish for punishment because such a response preserves the institution of marriage.