Passionate Love and Sexual Desire - Elaine Hatfield

38women were “supposed” to respond to adultery with only the gentlest forms ofaggression. They could express righteous indignation, cry, threaten to walk out, ordivorce. The men were allowed to bring out the really big guns: when offended, tobanish or murder their mates.3. How the Jealous React. Salovey and Rodin (1985) surveyed 25,000Americans (heterosexual, bisexual, and homosexual) from a variety of ethnic groups.How did they react the last time they were jealous? Although men and women differedlittle, heterosexuals (possibly because of their views of commitment) had a morepassionate reaction than did their gay, lesbian, or bisexual peers to provocation.Whatever their gender and orientation, however, jealous lovers described a variety ofjealous behaviors: They became obsessed with painful images of their beloved in thearms of their rivals. They sought out confirmation of their worst fears. They searchedthrough their partner's personal belongings for unfamiliar names and telephone numbers.They telephoned their mates unexpectedly just to see if they were where they had saidthey would be. They listened in on their telephone conversations and followed them.They gave their mates the third degree about previous or present romantic relationships.Anthropologists find that people throughout the world engage in similar kinds ofdetective work: The Dobuan husband watches his wife while she works the fields andcounts her footsteps if she goes into the bush. Too many footsteps mean a possibility of asecret sexual liaison (Mead, 1931). Apache men who leave their encampment generallyask their close blood relatives to spy on their wives (Goodwin, 1942).White and Mullen (1989) found that people try to cope with their jealous feelings, thethreats to their self-esteem and their fears of loss in a variety of ways: Sometimes, lovers