ove was no more the
people should separate in a friendly, comradely manner. If the wife or
the mistress wants another lover, she should be free to take one; she
is a free human being and not her husband's chattel slave, etc., etc.,
etc., to the same effect. Thus the man talked. And he was sincere in
his talk--or he thought he was. But one night on unexpectedly
returning home he found another man; he promptly fired several shots
at the man, which fortunately for both did not prove fatal, and then
he beat and choked his wife--who wasn't even his wife legally--within
an inch of her life. _And then he married her_ and gave up his free
love talk. And I know of any number of men who could philosophize for
hours about the disgrace and humiliation of being jealous, but who, as
soon as there was a justifiable cause for jealousy, became as
unreasonable as a child and as jealous as any unlettered Sicilian
woman ever was.

So you see, I am not deluding myself with extravagant hopes. But,
nevertheless, this argumentation, this talk, is not entirely useless.
A beginning must be made. This essay may not perhaps help--except for
the suggestions that will be made towards the end--those who are
already victims of the demon of jealousy, but it may help some people
to keep out of his clutches (or should I say: her clutches? I really
don't know whether the demon of jealousy is a male or a female.)

Feelings are stronger than reason; but that does not mean that
feelings cannot be influenced by reason; they decidedly can be and are
so influenced, and their _manifestations_ are modified by this
influence; and the more cultured, the more educated a person is (I
trust you will know that I use these terms in their true and not their
vulgar, misused meaning), the more will his feelings, or at least
actions, be influenced by his reason. I am particularly a believer in
the effect on our feelings and actions of public opinion, of ideas
universally or generally entertained.

Let me give one example which is pertinent to the subject. In former
days it was universally held, and in many places it is still held,
that when a wife sinned she committed the most unpardonable crime that
a human being could be guilty of and that she thereby _dishonored_ her
husband. And the only right thing for him to do was to shoot the rival
and cast out the wife; or at least to cast her out. This was a
_conditio sine qua non_. To take her back to his home was a disgrace,