Is Jealousy a Sin?
When most people think of jealousy, they imagine the usual clichés depicted by Hollywood. The classic go-to they depict is an explosively angry man reprimanding his girlfriend over some small-talk she had with a male passerby. Imaginations generally showcase the girlfriend sobbing uncontrollably while she defensively pleads, “It was nothing!” Her pleading falls on deaf ears as he shouts through gritted teeth his reprimands, and then his demands that she “flirt” with no man again. For quite a long time, this is how I have perceived jealousy. Not only that, this was how I only perceived jealousy. If you were to ask me back then if jealousy was a sin, my answer would certainly have been yes.
Good Jealousy
That changed rather abruptly after observing a young woman at a party turn exceptionally flirtatious with a long-time friend of hers, while she was married to someone else. Long story short, after her and her friend’s sexually charged conversation (both verbal and non-verbal), she suddenly developed a habit to wander to secluded areas away from the party, and her friend developed a similar tendency to follow closely after her. After tracking the two to a lonely, dark corner of the yard, the husband, who was also at the party, gave the friend a jealous eye, which was enough to break up that encounter. Keeping an eye on the woman myself, I noticed she again tried to entice the friend, this time to a different area, but that time he did not follow. I am not sure if it was the stern look he received, or the fact that if he got caught, which was highly likely, his wife would find out about his infidelity. Regardless, he chose to not take advantage of her momentary weakness.
Days later, when I met up with the husband again, I inquired about the inevitable follow-up conversation that he had with his wife. Her initial response was to simply call him paranoid and jealous of the fact she has male friends. Then she said to him something to the effect of, “If you really thought he was after me, why didn’t you fight for me?” When I heard this, two thoughts entered my mind: the first being that he did with his touch-my-wife-and-I-will-rip-you-apart glare. It may have been non-verbal, but it was there. The second was that there is a difference between fighting for someone and fighting someone. From just what I saw, it was clear that his wife was the initiator of all of that. It takes two to tango, and she was the one asking for a dance.
This was the point that I realized that jealousy was not always a bad thing. To say that it can only be bad means that the husband was wrong to feel and act the way he did to protect his marriage. It was very dear to him at the time. Are we really to assume that he had no right to protect it? No. He not only had every right to do and act the way that he did, it was morally correct for him to do so. His actions to protect his marriage also worked to protect his child from having to live in a broken home, keep his wife’s honor pure, the honor of her friend, the sanctity of that friend’s marriage, the peace of the family and friends that would be affected, and so on.
Good vs. Bad Jealousy
In both scenarios, we see feelings of jealousy. The first man felt it, and instead of ignoring it or inquiring peacefully, he treated his girlfriend extremely unjustly. The second felt it, and then acted to protect his marriage in a just manner; by which I mean he worked to quietly diffuse the situation and wait until he and his wife were alone to raise his concerns. He brought no shame, no embarrassment, and no dishonor to her public image. Her image did suffer some damage that night, but that was due to her own actions; a natural consequence of her friends at the party observing her blatantly court a man that was not her husband.
A common objection I hear, and one I heard a close friend of the wife use in criticizing the husband, was that no man has the right to control a woman. Okay, but that was not what was happening. When people form romantic relationships, they are forming social contracts to which each participating person agrees to abide by certain behavioral expectations. To a lesser extent, there is even an expectation that the rest of society respect relationships as well. This is because we value our relationships and want them to succeed. Taken together, all of this means that we have a right to defend our relationships and be outraged at those who threaten them. It does not matter where the threat comes from.
That, of course, does not mean that every observed threat warrants action, nor that every observation is correct. It certainly does not mean that every action taken in response is just. All it means is that the formation of a romantic relationship with someone creates an immaterial bond, a construct that both people have a right to be jealous and protective over. It is a natural element of the relationship itself. To say either member does not have a right to be jealous is in itself an admission that it is not a loving relationship, but something else entirely.
If Not Love, What is it?
A while back, I read an article in the New York Times about a woman who convinced her husband to have an open marriage. He was initially jealous, but acquiesced to her requests. Before long, she had moved her former high school lover into her and her husband’s house to live. She convinced her husband to go along with it by arguing that the man was in need of help due to his recent divorce. Not long after, she was going to sleep with her husband, but then sneaking out to have sex with her former lover in the middle of the night.
Ironically, this entire article was supposed to be supportive of open marriage by showing that open marriages could be successful like hers was. The biggest problem was the fact that at the end of the article she declared that she filed for a divorce to more meaningfully commit to her former lover, proving that she was neither loving nor committed to her husband in the first place.
It is obvious that this woman was not a virtuous woman. It is not obvious that her husband was incapable of saving his marriage. If he had held on to even the tiniest bit of jealousy, he may have saved it. My friend’s wife is far from the only woman who has asked her man if he would fight for her. A simple show of some kind of spine would have communicated that he valued what they had. Since he didn’t, she had little reason to value it either, and she walked straight out the door.
Be A Little Jealous
I could not find the original article for a rather horrifying reason: there was a lot of them. My quick search yielded a pile of stories, each depicting overly-docile husbands surrendering any sense of marital identity beyond the title of husband in the name of giving his wife whatever she wants. In one story I just read, a woman gets permission from a reluctant husband to have an affair. Then, after falling in love with one of the men, she convinces the husband to have her new lover co-father their child and move in with them. The husband even goes as far as to actually help the boyfriend build a separate area on his property so the boyfriend can have sex with his wife, all because the wife did not feel “sexy” enough doing it in an office with stacks of papers and under the glow of a computer’s screen saver.
Obviously, whatever dignity that husband had was willingly surrendered long ago. That is his prerogative; but there is little doubt that his decisions to ignore his jealousy and give in to each of his wife’s desires made things worse for everyone. Noticeably absent from her article is any declaration of happiness for anyone involved. She does try to paint happiness into the picture with talk of a common vision and mentions of everyone participating in family activities, but it is unconvincing. When their son moves out of the house, I suspect a split is coming their way very soon afterward.
A Mess of Their Own Making
The wife reiterated a few times that the purpose of what they were doing was to foster a happy environment for her son to grow up in. This entire construct of what she calls a family was essentially designed to suit and cater to his feelings. Is that aim of temporary happiness ultimately good for his well-being? Are there not more important elements of childhood that parents should provide? Did they not think about the example they were setting for their son? Did they not rationalize that his mother’s handling of his father figures was destined to corrupt his view of love and relationships?
Think about it. If the son emulates his father and wishes to get married, in his mind he’ll have to weigh that choice with 16 years of memories of his mother being romantically connected with another man under the same roof. To say that will have no effect on him is exceptionally naive. How about the other example: the boyfriend? There he would be pursuing married and committed women in the hopes that he could secure a similar arrangement. Even if he pulls that off, his prize is shallow: he’ll get both the joys and the horrors of being not fully committed to. Such relationships are far from stable, and in many cases, are disposable. Some men can be happy with such arrangements, but most need a relationship that gives them meaning and purpose. Whatever his choice, his views of what relationships are has most likely been fundamentally distorted through these experiences. We can only hope that he looks at his past and decides that his parents are not emulatable, nor should they be, and it is within his power to suppress the decade and a half of the perverted life-lessons he was subjected to.
Another component that was notably absent from the story is the mention of any new significant other in the husband’s life. This doesn’t necessarily mean he doesn’t have one, but it would make sense if that was the case. In his situation, he is still a married man that lives with his wife. That alone is usually a game-ender for anyone that is looking long term. Add in an explanation of the wife’s boyfriend, the son, the obvious questions about awkwardness and finances, and we get what would could quite possibly be the easiest dating decision one could ever make. Ultimately, I cannot feel sorry for him since he chose this path by not saying no and standing by his decision.
Still, it says something about the wife’s character that she would be willing to do this to him. Pressing him for open marriage, moving her boyfriend in, and then having him support them both is deplorable enough. Add the fact that she is staying in the house, essentially blocking him from moving on and into any new meaningful relationship is just despicable. She is denying for him what she demanded from him for over 15 years.
Godly Jealousy
If you have wandered to a modern dictionary by now, you may have noticed that what I have been calling good jealousy pertains to one provided definition in particular: the one that states jealousy is being “vigilant in guarding a possession”. That is correct, but there is another definition that has been lost to time that suits as well:
4. Indignation. God's jealousy signifies his concern for his own character and government, with a holy indignation against those who violate his laws, and offend against his majesty. Psalms 79:5.
God is not the only one. Being made in his image, we also feel indignation towards people who violate our terms and offend our dignity. The Bible even gives us comparisons wherever we see God react and describe His feelings towards Israel’s near-constant descents into idolatry. To God, the spiritual form of adultery is idolatry, which applies to Israel since they willingly committed themselves to abide by God in making their covenant with Him. In almost every example the Bible gives us, we see God describe his pain and jealousy using terms and language suited for a cheating bride. For example, in Ezekiel 16 & 23 God compares Israel to harlots and an adulterous wife. We see descriptions about the times Israel “spread their legs to every passerby” and reprisals like, “You are an adulterous wife, who takes strangers instead of her husband”. Harsh punishment followed these cases, and many of the others as well.
Before we go off and say that God is wrong for punishing Israel, and by extension that people dealing with a cheating spouse would be wrong to enact some form of punishment on the cheater, we have to remember the interactions of each case that occurred prior to the idolatry and infidelity. When God gave the Ten Commandments, in it was a dire warning. From the Book of Exodus, chapter 20 (KJV):
3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:
5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;
Those are God’s terms. To which the people of Israel replied:
All that the Lord hath said will we do, and be obedient. (Exodus 24:7 KJV)
That accepted proposal is the whole reason why God brought the judgements that he did. Not doing so would mean that he would be breaking His covenant. Much more nuanced covenantal conversations occur in the beginning stages of our relationships. By the fifth date, most couples have started to form some kind of social contract. As God gets jealous over his covenant, so can we get jealous over our relationships. That is one of the reasons why God related his jealousy with human relationships, we naturally feel jealous over them as he does about Israel’s spiritual devotion to Him.
How to Be Jealous
In the same way God abided by the covenantal terms He and Israel established, we must also abide and keep true to the promises we make within our relationships. This applies to both the expectations and the consequences. If someone tells their spouse, “Cheat on me and I will leave you!”, it is important that he or she leaves if they find infidelity. It is also important that the standards not waiver significantly. In the NY Times story above, the husband constantly changed his standards, effectually undermining all the boundaries he imposed in his marriage. Monogamy changed to polyamory, no contact with boyfriends changed to regular contact, separation changed to cohabitation, biological fathering changed to cofathering with the boyfriend, and so on. Most of these changes are polar opposites. Consenting to such drastic change shows the other person that they can get practically whatever they want, which is exactly what his wife did.
When we happen to feel jealous, it is important to accurately analyze the situation to discern if the jealousy felt is based on an actual threat and not a misperception. If it is based on a misperception, practically any action taken will either be unjust or taken as insecurity. A tendency in modern thinking is to assume the worst intentions are the driving force within other people, even those we know and love. If you have that tendency, combat it. In the vast majority of cases, it is the gravest misperception of all.
When there is enough cause to bring up concerns, it is exceptionally important to be calm and centered. Emotions are exceptionally powerful around the areas of life we love and cherish most, especially fear. If we are not careful, they will drive us straight into the deepest depths of irrationality. That is the point where we hurt those that we love and damage the very relationship we seek to protect. Containing emotions of this scale is tough, but it is essential if jealousy is to have any positive impact.
Keeping the goal of the protection of the relationship in purview, jealousy can indeed be a force for good in any relationship. If used properly, the controlled display of jealousy can show one’s significant-other that they value their relationship and wish for its success; keep the relationship within defined boundaries; and protect all those involved and affected from harm. For everyone’s sake, be a little jealous in your relationships.
