Letter from Sándor Ferenczi to Sigmund Freud, [May 31,] 1925

Budapest,
Whitsunday [May 31,] 1925

Dear Professor,

I am using Whitsunday to take care of my neglected correspondence; above all, I am writing to you not as if I had anything interesting of a personal nature to say to you, but rather to share with you an impression which imposes itself on me as a confirmation of your striking idea about the origin of jealousy from the castration complex.1—It already occurred to me before what disproportionately great sensitivity some husbands evince with respect to their wives' jealous reproaches. I was formerly inclined to relate this solely to their own consciousness of guilt (fantasies of infidelity), but I think (since your clarifications) that the unconscious surmising of the wife's castration intentions also plays a part in this. I now have the opportunity to observe the sexual life of a married couple being analyzed simultaneously (the man with ejaculatio praecox, the woman with mild jealousy mania). From the moment when the memories of castration threats were verbalized by the man, he became quite wild as soon as his wife expressed only the slightest hint of jealousy, even though he had to adapt himself to it from the beginning of his marriage.

The state of my health is somewhat wobbly, which is not exactly being alleviated by the hard work with the foreigners. Superfluously, I also had to give lectures; two in the last week.2

I hope you are continuing to be well!

Kind regards,

Ferenczi