I am starting to think that smart girls get do get jealous. I first got this idea when I read a Necrofile article by satirist Donna Lypchuk several years ago about jealousy and survival of the fittest and now I have also stumbled across a professional opinion by Dr. Irving Walkoff – a psychiatrist based in Toronto.
Apparently when you feel those feelings of jealousy descend the more homicidal they are the healthier you are. This is because what you are really thinking about is not really the other woman or how he is betraying you but really – the next seven generations of unborn descendants. In other words, we are hardwired to get mad at anything that threatens our sexual life as the original intention of sex was to procreate. If anyone gets in the way of that procreation – we don’t survive.
Nobody escapes jealousy. It is a natural human reaction that finds its basis in evolutionary biology. It is a part of Mother Nature and has a biological basis. You find displays of jealousy in any animal species that tends to form pairs. The tendency towards jealousy is right in your DNA. Essentially, you choose a partner because you want their DNA to be attached to your DNA. The roots of this are ancient and Darwinian —part of “the survival of the fittest.”
Jealousy is also related to anxiety. Walkoff sees this anxiety as being somewhat good …”it propels us to propagate the species … hurry up and get on with it! It is also about protecting the nest”
Envy, which is a little lighter than jealousy also comes into play in most relationships. Rock describes envy as being “the frustrated longing for other’s experience. It is a different, more superficial phenomenon than jealousy. You want to be the person as opposed to be the person who is desired.
When somebody else threatens your relationship, you start seeing the meddler as somehow better than you — the assumption is that they are better at adaptation, better at seduction, a better parent … in short are more fit to continue the species than you … this triggers a fight or flight response in many people. Jealousy is there to protect you and your DNA — the desire to pass on your DNA.
Walkoff claims that “a little bit of jealousy can be a good thing. In a healthy relationship, the subject can be discussed between both partners. Often, in the end, both partners feel secretly satisfied, as the jealousy is evidence that the relationship is still alive and kicking. Love is killed by indifference — not necessarily jealousy. Jealousy becomes pathological when one does not allow the other partner to live a normal life.”
It might be perfectly natural to experience jealousy, but in most religions, this emotion is still considered to be ugly and morally repugnant. Maybe it might be a good idea for a guy not to cause an occasion for jealousy in the first place!