to boil with heat.

Let's drop, for a moment, our marriage discussion and really nail down this concept of jealousy. What had me and Lily so perplexed is that, patently it would seem, general society will react to the following two scenarios quite differently:
1) X is "jealous" because spouse Y is kissing another person; and
2) X is "jealous" because spouse Y is having tea with a friend and bonding over Oprah.

The jealousy, or hurt, or sense of shame here, whatever name is used, will undoubtedly be treated with more sympathy for scenario 1, and will be nearly universally ridiculed in scenario 2. Now, whether that should be the case or not is not my concern. I am only curious why. And my curiosity is compounded when pondering the concept that, if jealousy is X's chosen nomenclature for explaining the emotion, and if jealousy is bad without degrees of less or more bad...then why does society treat number 1's jealousy more sympathetically than number 2's?

Beyond this question...or, perhaps, in pursuit of its answer...what in all heck is jealousy? Some thoughts:

I can dig that it's simply no good. At the same time, I feel in my gut it is a basic human response to challenges to our status, and it is better to acknowledge it and erase it than to supress it. I don't fully feel the popped up emotion is so bad, whereas I suspect the accumulation of pop ups is a real stinker.

What is the difference of jealousy and envy? Is there one? And to covet?

To the extent jealousy and envy are synonomous (please offer some argument that they are not...i've failed thus far to think of one), I am more ready to regard them as unhealthy things to be addressed and zapped. But perhaps there is more complexity here?

Finally, to simply screw this all around, some Greek:

Jealousy's root word comes from the latin zelus. This is the same word that gives us zealous. And that latin word comes, in turn, from the ancient Greek "zelon;" meaning ardour, excitment of mind, and so forth...but also meaning an envious and contentious rivalry. And, better yet, that greek noun comes from the Greek verk, zeno, meaning to boil with heat. And, as were many verbs in this poetic language, the verb was used metaphorically as boiling anger, love, zeal, for what is good or bad.

Do we use the old sense of the word? an envious and contentious rivalry? wrestling the angel?