How to be happy though human / by W. Béran Wolfe.
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succeeded in giving Mathilda a new and valid self- confidence after the childhood basis of her jealousy had been discovered, and new paths to social approval and a sense of security indicated to her. The Relation of Jealousy to Love To be jealous of someone means to possess him, or to attempt to possess him. Human beings are not chattels, and can never be possessed. One of the most tragic fallacies is the belief that one can buy or command the love or affection of another being. There are fathers who believe that, simply because they are fathers, their children must “ love and respect ” them. This is one of the more vicious ideas that we derive from the patri¬ archal Hebrews, an idea which has caused untold suffering in the world and uncounted conflicts between parents and children. There are husbands who believe that their wives must love them because they are their husbands, and there are wives who believe that, once they have married a man, they have solved all their problems and that love will follow on marriage as the night follows the day, without their lifting a hand to earn it. Men attempt to buy the love of women by giving them clothes or gifts and are surprised and pained when they find that these women love someone else. Whenever a human being is jealous, he tacitly admits that he feels himself incapable of earning and keeping the love of his beloved, and must have recourse to the artificial restric¬ tions and circumscriptions of jealousy to counteract any competition from outside which might show him in a bad light. Men and women, parents and children, when they feel inferior, try to buy and to own those they love, and to keep that ownership by means of the fetters of jealousy which prevent the beloved that freedom of movement without which love cannot exist. It is strange that after all these centuries of living, the average human being has not yet discovered the meaning of jealousy. Jealousy is the poison ivy that grows around