The Jealousy of Beauty among Women

I was listening to a radio song in my car and a woman was singing a song with the phrase "I came in like a rainbow."  So I imagined a woman coming into a man's life, bringing brightness and happiness, like a rainbow.

Later, the same song came on the radio, and I got the words all wrong. She was not singing I came in like a rainbow. She was singing, "I came in like a wrecking ball." I sure got this song wrong.

And it gets worse. I then see this song is quite popular, and the artist made a music video of herself practically naked, riding on the wrecking ball. Yes, she has completely destroyed my beautiful image of a rainbow. And so, the promotion of sexual immorality continues in American media. I ask, what is the end result for these women that are loose when it comes to their sexuality later in life? First they begin to lose their self respect and honor. And once they lose their self respect and honor, they lose their respect and honor among other women. They become wives, mothers and your neighbor. And the way they often display this loss of self respect is in a very ugly manner: for no reason they display very ugly jealousy and envy of the beauty of other women. This they try to hide in front of men by appearing like a rainbow. But inside, they are a wrecking ball, seeking a wall to break down.

Many think if you have beauty you have it all, but it is not true: one's beauty can become a curse. I looked on the internet, and I am not seeing much publicity about it. I did find this web site devoted to women who have decided to join the legal profession: When Other Women Hate You Because You're Beautiful. Even this woman had trouble writing about it:

Many of you reading this are probably already feeling an aversion to the topic—none of us likes to admit that other people are better looking than we are or, even worse, that we resent them for it. In fact, many of us don’t admit it, not even to ourselves. Instead, we channel the jealousy into resentment and let it lurk inside of us until the object of it does something that we can interpret maliciously—and then we hate them for that reason. I was inspired to write this post when I got a tearful phone call from a law school friend about how women at her new job don’t like her.

The blog post is interesting, because of the many comments from women confirming that this behaviour is wide spread. Is it ridiculous behaviour? Yes. Here is one comment on the blog post from a law student:

I'm not even in a job situation yet and I'm already hated. I am a student, and upon my first day of walking into the history department...I met someone who was ready to demolish me off the face of the earth before I even opened my mouth. I was shocked, but I just kept this tiny, cute little polite smile. This had a severe impact on me because this woman could not control herself. Her face was contorted, brutal...she showed me her teeth...narrowed the eyes...this is your basic serial killer behaviour. 

Despite opening the topic, the author had additional problems about the topic. First, she wondered why were women jealous in the first place? She had no answer. But I will give you the answer: women who act in this way do so from their background morals. People of low morals assume everyone to behave like they do. You cannot commit a sin and not expect it to have an effect on your character. Sleeping around is perhaps promoted as a western way of life, but it has its consequences.

Second, the author asked what could be done to stop the vicious cycle of jealousy? Again no answer. Her advice: don't talk about how pretty you are. Well, except that does not work. Women who happen to be beautiful do not have to talk about it, it is so obvious. My advice: meet it head on, but don't stoop to the idiotic level of getting angry. Ignoring the hatred will not work. You have to be willing to fight and put that evil down with the truth. Being friendly with evil behaviour will only make it worse. Exposing the evil, putting it out in the open, will put it down:

Men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. (John 3:19)

Every evil comes with its own level of falsity (darkness) where the person committing the act will try to justify it and cover it up. Jealousy in its essence is hatred, and finds enjoyment in making other people angry. But recognize the origin of that hatred: either the woman has pride in herself and wants attention, or it is because she has lost her own self respect and honor. For these jealous behaviours have nothing to do with a woman who happens to be beautiful, it comes from inside the person commiting that behaviour. People usually point the finger at others where their hidden fault lies:

Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me remove the speck from your eye'; and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. (Matt. 7:1-5)

So why is it necessary for me to talk about this jealousy among women? Because this sort of jealousy can not only destroy families, it can destroy a church community if left unchecked. No sense in trying to build a spiritual community if you never talk about the evils contained within the society, right? For in reality, it is women who tend to hold the bonds of a community together. If there is no love, and hidden jealousy, you have nothing.

FINDING YOUR RAINBOW AND AVOIDING THE WRECKING BALLS

Some women happen to be very clever in covering up their character. So how do you find that rainbow among all the wrecking balls? Some will say its like finding that pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. There is this interesting story about King Solomon, one of my favourites:

Now two women who were harlots came to the king, and stood before him.
And one woman said, "O my lord, this woman and I dwell in the same house; and I gave birth while she was in the house.
Then it happened, the third day after I had given birth, that this woman also gave birth. And we were together; no one was with us in the house, except the two of us in the house.
And this woman's son died in the night, because she lay on him.
So she arose in the middle of the night and took my son from my side, while your maidservant slept, and laid him in her bosom, and laid her dead child in my bosom.
And when I rose in the morning to nurse my son, there he was, dead. But when I had examined him in the morning, indeed, he was not my son whom I had borne."
Then the other woman said, "No! But the living one is my son, and the dead one is your son." And the first woman said, "No! But the dead one is your son, and the living one is my son." Thus they spoke before the king.
And the king said, "The one says, 'This is my son, who lives, and your son is the dead one'; and the other says, 'No! But your son is the dead one, and my son is the living one.'"
Then the king said, "Bring me a sword." So they brought a sword before the king.
And the king said, "Divide the living child in two, and give half to one, and half to the other."
Then the woman whose son was living spoke to the king, for she yearned with compassion for her son; and she said, "O my lord, give her the living child, and by no means kill him!" But the other said, "Let him be neither mine nor yours, but divide him."
So the king answered and said, "Give the first woman the living child, and by no means kill him; she is his mother."
And all Israel heard of the judgment which the king had rendered; and they feared the king, for they saw that the wisdom of God was in him to administer justice. (1 Kings 3:16-28)

Most people will never end up as a king of a nation. However most will eventually have to decide whom to marry. And on the surface, many people may appear alike. It is truth, and distressful situations, which can uncover a person's true character. How a person will treat others is how they will treat you. And note the origin of the women's jealousy between each other: from a life of harlotry. Jealousy seeks to destroy, and who will be destroyed the most? The children from these women will be most affected. So choose wisely. Choosing a spouse is more important than choosing a career or job. Applying the truth of discernment will allow one to find that rainbow among the wrecking balls. Impossible? Not so:

Houses and riches are an inheritance from fathers, But a prudent wife is from the LORD. (Prov. 19:14)

You will be surprised, if you have faith and are willing to wait. I have seen it happen.

THE SPIRITUAL DANGERS OF A LIFE OF FORNICATION AND ADULTERY

How spiritual one is can be seen in how one values marriage. There are many spiritual dangers one can commit, but very few are worse than the sin of adultery. Have you been told that it is OK to sleep around, or do you think marriage does not matter when it comes to sex? Think again. What are the exact consequences of this? I have already described one: you can see it women who wish to tear apart another woman who happens to be beautiful. But what about the afterlife? The afterlife was described in a series of visions by Emanuel Swedenborg in his work, Heaven and Hell. But among his visions, he was given very specific warnings about adultery. If you are not aware of who Swedenborg is, see The Confirmed Clairvoyance of Emanuel Swedenborg. For someone who has the ability to see things clairvoyantly, I pay attention. First: fornication is light, but adultery is worse, and one is judged by what one knows:

There are girls who have been enticed into harlotry and thus persuaded that there was no evil in it, being in other respects rightly disposed. These, because they are not yet of an age to be able to know and judge about such a life, have an instructor with them, quite severe, who chastises them whenever they burst out into thought of such wantonness. Of him they are in great fear, and in this way they are vastated. But adult women who have been harlots and have enticed others, do not undergo vastation, but are in hell. (Heavenly Arcana, n. 1113)

Sex without spiritual love becomes merely a natural desire, and those who tend to engage in it will hate true love. And even if one acknowledges spiritual truth, the natural desire will pervert it:

Natural love separated from spiritual love is opposed to spiritual love, because natural love is the love of self and the love of the world, and spiritual love is the love of the Lord and the love of the neighbor; and the love of self and the world looks downward and outward, and the love of the Lord looks upward and inward. When, therefore, natural love has been separated from spiritual love, it cannot be elevated above the proprium of the man, but remains immersed in it, and so far as it loves it, is wedded to it. And then if the understanding ascends and sees from the light of heaven those things which are of wisdom, the love draws down the wisdom and conjoins it to itself in its own proprium, and there either rejects the things which are of wisdom, or falsifies them, or places them around itself that it may speak of them for the sake of good repute. (Divine Love and Wisdom, n. 424)

In another passage, Swedenborg describes a mere belief in God, without purifying oneself from evil desires, as a well-painted harlot (Divine Providence, n. 121). This is the reason why the Protestant theology of faith alone is quite evil, as it does not tell people that they must repent of their sins (see The Fundamental Error of the Protestant Faith). Thus one sees people acting superficially in church, but living a life completely separate from that. Thus Swedenborg saw the miserable end of many who believed that they were saved by their faith or belief alone, without attempting to purify themself from their evil sins through Jesus.

I should mention here, that not all jealousies originate from low sexual morals or a desire to get attention, but some may stem from a particular mental illness - both among men and women:

That with some jealousy is from a varying mental infirmity is no secret in the world; for there are jealous men who are continually thinking of their wives that they are unfaithful, and believe them to be harlots if only they hear or see that they talk in a friendly way with men, or about men. There are many vitiated states of mind which induce this infirmity,—first among which is a suspicious fantasy, which if long cherished brings the mind into societies of similar spirits, from which it is difficult to be released. (Angelic Wisdom concerning Marriage Love, n. 374)

For those who commit adultery, or desire it, their end in the afterlife is not good. I should preface this account with some background: after death, our life continues, but in a higher form in a complete spiritual body. All restraints are removed, and we will automatically go where our own desire takes us. For those who have not resisted their internal evil desires, they will be brought forth. So its important to examine and reform oneself in this life. For one's heaven or hell is determined by one's attitude towards marriage. So for adulterers, I will just repeat a small portion of the terrible end that Swedenborg saw for them in his visions:

The excellence of the life of every one is according to his marriage love; for it conjoins itself with the life of the wife and by the conjunction ennobles itself. But as with these not the least of marriage love remains, nor therefore anything of the inmost of life, for that reason their lot after death is wretched. After passing a period of time in their externals, in the world of spirits—during which they speak rationally and act civilly,—they are let into their internals, and then into the same lust and its delights, in the same degree of it, in which they had been in the world. For after death everyone is introduced into the same state of life that he had appropriated to himself,—to the end that he may be led out of it; for one cannot be led away from his evil unless he has first been let into it. Otherwise the evil would hide itself and pollute the interiors of the mind, and pour itself forth like a pestilence, and finally burst the barriers and ruin the externals, which are of the body. To this end brothels are opened to them,—which are at the side of a hell where there are harlots, with whom there is opportunity of varying their inordinate desires; but indulgence is permitted with only one in a day, and with more the same day is prohibited under penalty. Afterwards, when it has been established by test that the lust is so implanted that they cannot be led away from it, they are taken to a certain place which is directly over the hell assigned to them, and there appear to themselves as if falling in a swoon, and to others as if they were sinking down with upturned face; and the ground is actually opened under their backs and they are swallowed up, and glide down into the hell where their like are. They are thus gathered to their own. ...these same from a long way off do not appear as men, nor as monsters, but as gelatine. And it should be known that such do they become who are imbued with that lust to such a degree that they have rent in pieces and annihilated the human desire for marriage within them. (Angelic Wisdom concerning Marriage Love, n. 510)

The above shows the importance of examining and repenting from one's internal desires. In the afterlife, the world of imagination and ideas becomes one's reality. It is not good enough just to hide it - one must deal with the actual desire itself. It is one's desire which will lead each person to their particular heaven or hell.

SOME FINAL THOUGHTS

In summary, jealousy can come from self pride to get attention or honor from others, but when it comes to extreme irrational jealousy of beauty among women it can often originate from the low sexual morals of those women. In other ways, it so consumes the mind it can be regarded as a mental illness. I would also say a religion that emphasizes that one is "saved by belief alone" regardless of one's life makes this behaviour worse. How one regards marriage is very closely related to one's relationship with God. I will mention some personal observations.

In one, I was walking down a busy street of a city in a Muslim country. And what did I see? I saw two women walking together, arm in arm, enjoying each other's company. What love in friendship, I thought. Not that it does not happen in America, it is just something I do not personally see that often. But it is so normal there: kindness, and an inner happiness in the face.

In another observation, at a certain IT company there was a party at a lunch room. Certain groups sat with each other, but among the women they just could not sit with each other. Even though seats were available, they would rather not sit down with each other. Why was this? They were from the sales and marketing area, and from their conversations it was well known they were sexually loose. Their manager saw it, and probably thought the same thing I thought: these people were not going to be able to work together as a team to get the job done.

In group settings, where people adhere to a belief in one God, and believe in a life of following his commandments, I have seen a different attitude: the absence of any sort of jealousy of a beautiful woman. They look at the person for who they are. Unfortunately, and perhaps more so in America, being beautiful can be a curse.

I say this for those women who have spoken to me privately, and have made me aware of what I regard as a very ugly behaviour. My advice is: choose your marriage partner WISELY. Try to find your rainbow, and avoid those wrecking balls.