Jealousy ! - Understanding the      dangerous side of
     LOVE
                                        
 
Jealousy devoured Othello and destroyed Desdemona, it devastates
relationships and drowns marriages in violence. But according to a new book
by Professor David Buss of the University of Texas, Shakespeare's 'green
eye'd monster' is not only prehistoric, it's also a vital companion, necessary for
evolutionary survival. 

In The Dangerous Passion: Why Jealousy Is As Necessary As Love And Sex
(Free Press, 2000), Buss, a psychologist, argues that although jealousy
causes much of the domestic violence that makes up 13% of the murder rate, it
is also a human passion based on sound evolutionary principles. 

Although we all feel jealous at certain times, men and women experience
jealousy in different ways, says the book. Thousands of people in countries as
far apart as Zimbabwe and Korea were asked whether they would be more
distressed by the thought of their partner forming a deep emotional attachment
to another person or having passionate sex with them. Men around the world
were more easily moved to jealousy by the thought of their partner with another
man, while women's jealous feelings were more usually triggered by the idea
of their partner developing an emotional attachment to another woman, even if
that relationship was non-sexual. 

For Buss, a psychologist who looks for evolutionary origins to explain modern
emotions, this makes sense. A man who falls in love with another woman, he
argues, may abandon his spouse, leaving her to bring up their offspring alone,
a result that would always be disastrous for the woman. A woman's infidelity on
the other hand, could easily result in a man wasting his resources on someone
else's child, a situation summed up in the African saying, "Mama's baby,
Papa's maybe." 

Jealousy, writes Buss, "is not a sign of immaturity, but rather a supremely
important passion that helped our ancestors, and most likely continues to help
us today, to cope with a host of real reproductive threats. It drives us to keep
partners from straying with tactics such as escalating violence or showering a
partner with affection and it communicates commitment to a partner who may
be wavering." Understanding the cause of jealousy, Buss claims, may enable
us to develop the emotional wisdom to help us deal with what can be a
powerful and painful emotion. 

Angie for example, is a young woman in a serious relationship. She feels
strong jealousy towards her boyfriend's long line of exes, a reaction that
makes her feel inadequate and hurt. "I keep wondering if he ever thinks about
them and if they were ever better than me in any way," she says. "It's probably
one of the strongest feelings I've ever had in my life. 

"He's been out with so many people and girls flirt with him all the time - not just
friendly flirting, but the kind where they go as far as taking off their shirts at
parties and inviting him to sleep with them. It makes me so mad and I hate it.
I'm usually a really calm person, so it scares me when I feel like this." 

According to Buss, emotions such as Angie's can be explained as a way of
dealing with a situation which could represent a danger to the relationship.
"Former lovers are in fact a real threat," he said. "People sometimes get back
together with former lovers, either permanently or for a brief sexual fling. So
jealousy towards a partner's former lovers is sometimes quite realistic." 

In fact, says Buss, jealousy can be seen as a hypersensitive alarm signal,
warning us of a partner's infidelity. While this may also serve as a warning to a
partner considering straying, false accusations can put a strain on an
otherwise good relationship. 

When Jay became a victim of his partner's unreasonable jealousy, he found
himself completely at a loss. "I felt helpless," he said. "Truth was no defense. I
couldn't prove anything and the other person had to choose my version over a
false impression they had." 

But while unreasonable jealousy can be painful, the cost of some temporary
bad feeling may seem small when weighed against the risk of losing a partner
or raising someone else's offspring. In the book, Buss tells the story of a man
who noticed that the lights on his neighbor's Christmas tree were flashing in
time with the lights of the tree in his own house. He became certain that his wife
was having an affair with the neighbor and when brought to counseling, was
declared 'delusional' and suffering from pathological jealousy. Eventually, it
became clear that the wife was indeed sleeping with the neighbor and the
husband had somehow picked up on her infidelity, triggering a jealous
reaction. 

"Because infidelity is cloaked in great secrecy it is impossible to determine
with precision how accurate suspicions really are," Buss explained. "There is
such a thing as irrational jealousy and it can be extremely destructive,
undermining the entire relationship. I would recommend couples counseling for
those afflicted by this problem. But it's important to bear in mind that many
people diagnosed as having 'delusional jealousy' turn out to be right in their
suspicions." 

Couples most at risk from infidelity are those in which the desirability of one of
the partners is greater than the other. While men have much to gain and little to
lose by spreading their seed as widely as possible, women, argues Buss,
sometimes seek out additional partners in order to find a back-up, or as a
method of trading up for a better set of genes for their offspring. In general,
women usually have affairs with sexy, symmetrical men and are most inclined
to stray when they are most fertile. In a chapter entitled "Why Women Have
Affairs," Buss recounts one particularly telling experiment in which men were
asked to wear the same t-shirt for two days without washing or wearing
deodorant. Women were then asked to smell the shirts and were able to
accurately assess which of the men were the most symmetrical based only on
their odor - a feat they were only able to accomplish when they were ovulating. 

While men and women both have much to gain - and much to lose - by straying
outside of their relationships, jealousy enables us to demonstrate our love for
our partner and helps us keep them in line. "Humans have many and
sometimes conflicting emotions," said Buss. "Desires to stray and desires to
stay - and which desires we act on is very much a personal choice."