I think everyone gets jealous but not necessarily of mates. I think it's a regular feeling just like all the others. I don't know that I think it is good or bad, it's just information, like anger, of what might be not quite right or what one can change in one's own life if one wanted to.
I've been jealous of my nieces and nephews when my stepmother let them (her grandchildren) do things 15-20 years after not letting me or was all right with things she punished me for. It showed me what I was hanging on to that I should let go of, and how people grow and change.
I'm sure a lot of sibling rivalry is full of jealousy. It's hard to learn, especially when parents try to pretend everyone is the "same" how to be one's own self and that I don't need what someone else has, just because they have it and I don't. Children counting how many presents they get and how many presents their siblings each got is a scary sight to me. It's not actually about whether life is "fair" or not, but about trying to learn to be who one is, without reference to or expressed through what one has. The whole Cain and Abel story is interesting to me in how it plays out.
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"Never give a sword to a man who can't dance." ~Confucius
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