Love, Jealousy, and Envy
Valentine’s Day is fast approaching, so I suppose this is rather timely. Honestly, I didn’t even think of it until I’d almost finished writing this post. I considered waiting until the 14th to hit the “publish” button, but I’ve decided it might be nice for everyone to be able to read my thoughts here leading all the way up to the official day of sickly pink, instead of only after it has arrived. So without further ado . . .
“If the theory of love were perfectly clear to you and Love’s dart had ever touched you, your own feelings would have shown you that love cannot exist without jealousy, because . . . jealousy between lovers is commended by every man who is experienced in love . . .”
So said Andreas Capellanus, the scribe of The Art of Courtly Love, during the reign of Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine in England. It was the time of chivalry and pageantry, when kings and knights marched boldly to Crusade in the Holy Land . . . or to rape and plunder their neighbors—whichever impulse took them first.
Capellanus revolutionized the idea of romantic love. There is some debate over whether he was being totally serious about what he was writing. So much of Courtly Love oozes with cynicism and satire. In any case, I ran across this particular “rule” of courtly love earlier today while reading a book, and that made me stop and think.
Is this statement true? Is love really impossible without jealousy? Shouldn’t true love be generous, giving and forgiving, tolerant, and unconditional? I suppose that would require one to define jealousy. First, I think we must distinguish it from envy. Often the two are confused with one another. But envy requires an object—a person to be envious of. When one envies, one covets something that object of envy possesses.
On the other hand, jealousy is an attitude. A particular way of regarding a relationship. A man might be a jealous person without having anyone to be jealous of. Capellanus defines jealousy thus:
“Now jealousy is a true emotion whereby we greatly fear that the substance of our love may be weakened by some defect in serving the desires of our beloved, and it is an anxiety lest our love may not be returned, and it is a suspicion of the beloved, but without any shameful thought.”
That last is, as he makes clear later, any “shameful thought” regarding the beloved’s fidelity. In other words, “suspicion” of faithlessness without actually believing that the beloved is unfaithful. Well, that is worded a bit subjectively for a definition, so let’s abstract it a little bit. Essentially, jealousy is the lover’s desire for the beloved to requite one’s affections and the displeasure the lover has in the case that the beloved does not, and especially, at the notion that the beloved might love another.
Okay, so where am I going with this? I had a couple observations regarding this definition of jealousy.
First, I think Capellanus is correct. Without this kind of jealousy, it is impossible to love. Today’s idea of free-wheeling male-to-female and casual-intimate relationships, which is so glorified and idealized in modern media and story is not love. Any “love” that cares not whether the beloved is exclusively faithful is false. That means “you do whatever you like with whomever you like” is something entirely other than love.
Secondly, jealousy is a reflection of the divine, just as love is a reflection of the divine.
For YHWH your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.
~Deuteronomy 4:24
The covenant God of Israel gets a lot of flack because skeptics look at this verse and others like it and say, “God is jealous? What kind of an almighty deity would be subject to such a petty emotion as jealousy? Surely God, if he/she/it does exist, is above that.”
But apply my distillation of Capellanus’s definition of jealousy, and one then reads this to mean that YHWH Elohim desires for his chosen people to love Him (with all their heart and soul and mind), and is most displeased when they do not love Him, choosing instead to go after idols and strange gods.
When people say today that so-and-so is “not a jealous man,” it’s usually intended as a compliment. But a lover who does not urgently desire the affections of the beloved and cares little whether or not his beloved loves someone else is no lover at all. Capellanus observes that such a lover will not go to any great length to secure the affections of the beloved. He has no concern that what he does will offend or displease his beloved, and he will not exhibit any of the other things that Capellanus has on his list of things that lovers do, because he doesn’t care enough to do so.
An un-jealous God would be incapable of the covenant sacrificial love with which YHWH regards his chosen people. Those who say that God should be above jealousy are in fact saying that God should be above loving them. If you say “God is so great that he does not care what I do. He is above being offended by such a little thing as me,” you are really saying, “I am so insignificant that God cannot and does not love me. And by the way, I don’t want him to.” Which is a truly terrifying thing to say.
We ought to be thankful for God’s jealousy. It is precisely because God loves that He is jealous. And it is because He is jealous that He loves. Were it not for his jealousy, He would not have cared whether we wandered in sin and darkness, chasing false gods and destroying ourselves with them. It is because of God’s jealous love—because of His desire that we should love Him as He loves us—that He sent Jesus, his only Son, to reclaim us.
God loves perfectly, and he is perfectly jealous. When man is jealous, even as when man loves, he is imperfect. That does not mean that jealousy of itself is sinful. Rather, it is when envy and covetousness creep in and taint jealousy that it becomes sin. God loves perfectly, and his love for his people is a jealous love. So we must conclude that in order to love more perfectly as God loves, we also must be jealous in our love.
On the point of jealousy, Capellanus is correct in the most essential sense. A love that is not jealous is not love, and he who is not jealous cannot love.
Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is strong as death, jealousy is fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of YHWH.
~Song of Solomon 8:6
Sources and additional reading:
Capellanus’s Rules of Courtly Love
The Art of Courtly Love (at Google Books)
Tags: Capellanus, jealousy, love, romance
Apologetics, Books and Literature, History, Theology, Trinitarian Romance | Christopher Kou | 
February 3, 2009 11:35 PM
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"We ought to be thankful for God’s jealousy. It is precisely because God loves that He is jealous. And it is because He is jealous that He loves." Very well said. This was a very insightful look at love and jealousy, thanks for sharing. Andreas Capellanus' Rules of Courtly Love are pretty interesting/amusing as well. So, where would you say Shakespeare's line about jealousy being as the green eyed monster fits into all of this? Perhaps famous lines like that, which give negative connotations to the idea of jealousy, are where we began to go awry on this topic in the first place?
Mmmm, yes . . . but consider whose character is speaking that line, and consider his motive.Iago is the villain of the play, and he's "warning" Othello against jealousy. In doing that, he prevents Othello from actually dealing directly with the situation and diabolically incites rather than quells Othello's jealousy.Othello violates Capellanus's rule that jealous "suspicion" should be without shameful thoughts toward or of the beloved. In fact, suspicion is too strong a word. A better one might be "watchfulness."In Shakespeare's play, Othello's jealousy is corrupted by Iago's lies and transforms into envy and unjust rage, which is the REAL green-eyed monster.
Very interesting Chris!I've always known that jealousy in itself wasn't a bad thing. But I had never linked it with love. That was intriguing.-Jess
Nice work, Chris.
Nice work, Chris.
Agreed. And perhaps this is why it's such fun when a good-natured husband playfully shows jealousy over his wife. (ever try talking to one about the other men his wife dated before he got her? hehe) It's supposed to be that way.
Great thoughts, Chris. I think we can equate jealousy proper with eros, love that responds to and pursues what is desirable and beautiful in the beloved. Lust does the opposite, reduces the beloved to a sexual object rather than seeing him/her as an image of God.Lewis here: "We use a most unfortunate idiom when we say, of a lustful man prowling the streets, that he 'wants a woman.' Strictly speaking, a woman is just what he does not want. He wants a pleasure for which a woman happens to be a necessary piece of apparatus."So then God's love for us is both eros, agape and philia (Christ is our brother).
From one of Leithart's wedding sermons:"It is a tragedy that 'erotic' has come to be synonymous with 'pornographic.' Christian condemnation of lust is, as John Paul II has argued, an appeal for a 'true eroticism,' a desiring love that does not reduce the beloved to a sexual object but is attarcted to the image of diving goodness and beauty in the person loved."
Wow, it's so fuuny you posted this today. Literally, less than an hour ago I was reading Proverbs and was reminded of how it says that anyone who touches his neighbor's wife will not go unpunished because, "…jealousy makes a man furious, and he will not spare when he takes revenge." (Proverbs 6:34) After being reminded of this this I began going through my head the difference between godly jealousy versus envy, and then I saw your post. How ironic…and convenient. I enjoyed reading it. Thanks for posting. ~ Kristin
Actually, I just realized you posted this yesterday, haha. So I guess God just "conveniently" lead me to read it this morning after my own study of it. ~ Kristin
Nuts. I was moderating my spam, and noticed just as I clicked “empty spam,” that one of the comments looked legit (it appeared to be about St. Valentine’s Day). Well, it’s gone now. To whomever posted here, sorry about that. If you like, please try again. I’ll be more careful in reading through the filtered comments next time.