“Perry, you now find yourself in an environment in which the factor of physical sexual jealousy is no longer a survival factor. On the contrary it decreases your chances to survive. Yet the factor still exists in your ‘nature’. You say ‘that is that’ and that nothing can be done about it, which would be true if you were a bull, but you are not a bull and there is an essential difference between modern man and other animals. Men are able consciously to examine their motives, emotions, and so forth, and by a conscious process to inhibit or divert a reaction, reflex, and so forth. He can control his emotions or modify them by conscious application, and thereby change ‘human nature’. You think not? Let us consider the case of another survival factor, the fear of falling from a height. You ride in air cars. Are you afraid of the height? Does it cause you any nervousness? Does it upset your digestion, prevent you from sleeping nights, cause you to wake screaming from nightmares? Today the fear of heights is potentially present in that inherited matrix you call ‘human nature’. It’s nearly as old as the sex urge.”
“Say,” put in Perry, “you’re right. I’ve had such dreams lately as a result of a fall. But I’m not bothered anymore—not in the least.”
“Let’s take another case, belly hunger. It is the oldest factor of all reaching back past the origin of bisexual life. If ‘human nature’ is not subject to change it should be the strongest of all and uncontrollable. Do you drool and slobber at a display of food? Do you fall on it like a wild animal? Do you snatch it from the plate of another? Do you sit up nights worrying about it? Yet it is there and basic. A change in environment would develop it to the point where men would fight for it, claw crusts of bread from dust bins, steal, rob, kill. You can supply many examples from experience and history. Do you begin to see that the active exercise of the factor of sex jealousy is today as stupid, as silly, as uncouth, and as unnecessary as the feeding habits of the jungle?”
Perry nodded soberly. “I begin to see, rationally at least. I’m afraid my emotions won’t change quite so readily.”
“Don’t let that worry you. Proper emotional habits may be acquired like other habits—by conscious exercise over a period of time. If you control your acts along the pattern you desire, and exercise your will, your emotions will change. That may seem unlikely but I assure that it is a report of observed fact. Analogy in the cases of other primitive urges may make it credible to you.
“Before we go further, I would like to point out to you that the factor of sex jealousy as present in you and as exercised in the environment in which you matured was not always present in the same way in all times, places, and culture. Polygamy is, of course, well known to you, if not through experience, at least by report. It is a matter of reported fact that women in polygamous cultures were not made unhappy by the practice. The early Mormon culture is a case in point. Polyandry is less well known but was common in Tibet for a long period and worked very satisfactorily. In certain parts of Asia in recent times it was a common practice for a host to loan his wife or daughter to a guest for the night. It would have been bad form to refuse. Among certain of the Eskimo tribes it was the accepted practice in very recent times to exchange wives for considerable periods usually for reasons of domestic economy. To have disputed the practice or stirred up a fuss about it would have been thought barbaric, not to say immoral. Among certain of the Polynesian tribes promiscuity before marriage was the accepted rule. On the other hand among the Zulus as late as the twentieth century, a maid ready for marriage was examined by a committee of elder women. If they did not pronounce her a virgo intacta, she was beheaded. In contrast to this, among many people prostitution was a religious rite, reaching the extreme point in at least one highly developed culture wherein a woman could not marry until she had passed at least one night as a public prostitute. The illustrations from anthropology are endless. I have cited enough to show you that the manifestations of male sex jealousy occurring in the culture in which you were reared are not the result of an inflexible law.