It was not hard to find these Fugitives; for as they fled, they were forced to fire and cut the Woods before ’em: So that Night or Day they pursu’d ’em by the Light they made, and by the Path they had cleared. But as soon as Cæsar found that he was pursu’d, he put himself in a Posture of Defence, placing all the Woman and Children in the Rear; and himself, with Tuscan by his Side, or next to him, all promising to die or conquer. Encouraged thus, they never stood to parley, but fell on pell-mell upon the English , and killed some, and wounded a great many; they having Recourse to their Whips, as the best of their Weapons. And as they observed no Order, they perplexed the Enemy so sorely, with lashing ’em in the Eyes; and the Women and Children seeing their Husbands so treated, being of fearful and cowardly Dispositions, and hearing the English cry out, Yield and Live! Yield, and be Pardon’d! they all ran in amongst their Husbands and Fathers, and hung about them, crying out, Yield! Yield, and leave Cæsar to their Revenge ; that by Degrees the Slaves abandon’d Cæsar , and left him only Tuscan and his Heroick Imoinda , who grown as big as she was, did nevertheless press near her Lord, having a Bow and a Quiver full of poisoned Arrows, which she managed with such Dexterity, that she wounded several, and shot the Governor into the Shoulder; of which Wound he had like to have died, but that an Indian Woman, his Mistress, sucked the Wound, and cleans’d it from the Venom: But however, he stir’d not from the Place till he had parly’d with Cæsar , who he found was resolved to die fighting, and would not be taken; no more would Tuscan or Imoinda . But he, more thirsting after Revenge of another Sort, than that of depriving him of Life, now made use of all his Art of Talking and Dissembling, and besought Cæsar to yield himself upon Terms which he himself should propose, and should be sacredly assented to, and kept by him. He told him, It was not that he any longer fear’d him, or could believe the Force of two Men, and a young Heroine, could overthrow all them, and with all the Slaves now on their Side also; but it was the vast Esteem he had for his Person, the Desire he had to serve so gallant a Man, and to hinder himself from the Reproach hereafter, of having been the Occasion of the Death of a Prince, whose Valour and Magnanimity deserved the Empire of the World. He protested to him, he looked upon his Action as gallant and brave, however tending to the Prejudice of his Lord and Master, who would by it have lost so considerable a Number of Slaves; that this Flight of his should be look’d on as a Heat of Youth, and a Rashness of a too forward Courage, and an unconsider’d Impatience of Liberty, and no more; and that he labour’d in vain to accomplish that which they would effectually perform as soon as any Ship arrived that would touch on his Coast: ‘So that if you will be pleased ( continued he ) to surrender yourself, all imaginable Respect shall be paid you; and your Self, your Wife and Child, if it be born here, shall depart free out of our Land.’ But Cæsar would hear of no Composition; though Byam urged, if he pursued and went on in his Design, he would inevitably perish, either by great Snakes, wild Beasts or Hunger; and he ought to have Regard to his Wife, whose Condition requir’d Ease, and not the Fatigues of tedious Travel, where she could not be secured from being devoured. But Cæsar told him, there was no Faith in the White men, or the Gods they ador’d; who instructed them in Principles so false, that honest Men could not live amongst them; though no People profess’d so much, none perform’d so little: That he knew what he had to do when he dealt with Men of Honour; but with them a Man ought to be eternally on his Guard, and never to eat and drink with Christians, without his Weapon of Defence in his Hand; and, for his own Security, never to credit one Word they spoke. As for the Rashness and Inconsiderateness of his Action, he would confess the Governor is in the right; and that he was ashamed of what he had done in endeavouring to make those free, who were by Nature Slaves, poor wretched Rogues, fit to be used as Christian Tools; Dogs, treacherous and cowardly, fit for such Masters; and they wanted only but to be whipped into the Knowledge of the Christian Gods, to be the vilest of all creeping Things; to learn to worship such Deities as had not Power to make them just, brave, or honest: In fine, after a thousand Things of this Nature, not fit here to be recited, he told Byam , He had rather die, than live upon the same Earth with such Dogs. But Trefry and Byam pleaded and protested together so much, that Trefry believing the Governor to mean what he said, and speaking very cordially himself, generously put himself into Cæsar’s Hands, and took him aside, and persuaded him, even with Tears, to live, by surrendring himself, and to name his Conditions. Cæsar was overcome by his Wit and Reasons, and in Consideration of Imoinda ; and demanding what he desired, and that it should be ratify’d by their Hands in Writing, because he had perceived that was the common Way of Contract between Man and Man amongst the Whites; all this was performed, and Tuscan’s Pardon was put in, and they surrender’d to the Governor, who walked peaceably down into the Plantation with them, after giving Order to bury their Dead. Cæsar was very much toil’d with the Bustle of the Day, for he had fought like a Fury; and what Mischief was done, he and Tuscan performed alone; and gave their Enemies a fatal Proof, that they durst do any Thing, and fear’d no mortal Force.
But they were no sooner arrived at the Place where all the Slaves receive their Punishments of Whipping, but they laid Hands on Cæsar and Tuscan , faint with Heat and Toil; and surprizing them, bound them to two several Stakes, and whipped them in a most deplorable and inhuman Manner, rending the very Flesh from their Bones, especially Cæsar , who was not perceived to make any Moan, or to alter his Face, only to roll his Eyes on the faithless Governor, and those he believed Guilty, with Fierceness and Indignation; and to complete his Rage, he saw every one of those Slaves who but a few Days before ador’d him as something more than Mortal, now had a Whip to give him some Lashes, while he strove not to break his Fetters; tho’ if he had, it were impossible: but he pronounced a Woe and Revenge from his Eyes, that darted Fire, which was at once both aweful and terrible to behold.
When they thought they were sufficiently revenged on him, they unty’d him, almost fainting with Loss of Blood, from a thousand Wounds all over his Body; from which they had rent his Clothes, and led him bleeding and naked as he was, and loaded him all over with Irons; and then rubb’d his Wounds, to complete their Cruelty, with Indian Pepper, which had like to have made him raving mad; and, in this Condition made him so fast to the Ground, that he could not stir, if his Pains and Wounds would have given him Leave. They spared Imoinda , and did not let her see this Barbarity committed towards her Lord, but carried her down to Parham , and shut her up; which was not in Kindness to her, but for Fear she should die with the Sight, or miscarry, and then they should lose a young Slave, and perhaps the Mother.
You must know, that when the News was brought on Monday Morning, that Cæsar had betaken himself to the Woods, and carry’d with him all the Negroes , we were possess’d with extreme Fear, which no Persuasions could dissipate, that he would secure himself till Night, and then would come down and cut all our Throats. This Apprehension made all the Females of us fly down the River, to be secured; and while we were away, they acted this Cruelty; for I suppose I had Authority and Interest enough there, had I suspected any such Thing, to have prevented it: but we had not gone many Leagues, but the News overtook us, that Cæsar was taken and whipped liked a common Slave. We met on the River with Colonel Martin , a Man of great Gallantry, Wit, and Goodness, and whom I have celebrated in a Character of my new Comedy , by his own Name, in Memory of so brave a Man: He was wise and eloquent, and, from the Fineness of his Parts, bore a great Sway over the Hearts of all the Colony: He was a Friend to Cæsar , and resented this false Dealing with him very much. We carried him back to Parham , thinking to have made an Accommodation; when he came, the first News we heard, was, That the Governor was dead of a Wound Imoinda had given him; but it was not so well. But it seems, he would have the Pleasure of beholding the Revenge he took on Cæsar ; and before the cruel Ceremony was finished, he dropt down; and then they perceived the Wound he had on his Shoulder was by a venom’d Arrow, which, as I said, his Indian Mistress healed by sucking the Wound.
We were no sooner arrived, but we went up to the Plantation to see Cæsar ; whom we found in a very miserable and unexpressible Condition; and I have a thousand Times admired how he lived in so much tormenting Pain. We said all Things to him, that Trouble, Pity and Good-Nature could suggest, protesting our Innocency of the Fact, and our Abhorrence of such Cruelties; making a thousand Professions and Services to him, and begging as many Pardons for the Offenders, till we said so much, that he believed we had no Hand in his ill Treatment; but told us, He could never pardon Byam ; as for Trefry , he confess’d he saw his Grief and Sorrow for his Suffering, which he could not hinder, but was like to have been beaten down by the very Slaves, for speaking in his Defence: But for Byam , who was their Leader, their Head—and should, by his Justice and Honour, have been an Example to ’em—for him, he wished to live to take a dire Revenge of him; and said, It had been well for him, if he had sacrificed me, instead of giving me the comtemptible Whip. He refused to talk much; but begging us to give him our Hands, he took them, and protested never to lift up his to do us any Harm. He had a great Respect for Colonel Martin , and always took his Counsel like that of a Parent; and assured him, he would obey him in any Thing but his Revenge on Byam : ‘Therefore ( said he ) for his own Safety, let him
speedly dispatch me; for if I could dispatch myself, I would not, till that Justice were done to my injured Person, and the Contempt of a Soldier: No, I would not kill myself, even after a Whipping, but will be content to live with that Infamy, and be pointed at by every grinning Slave, till I have completed my Revenge; and then you shall see, that Oroonoko scorns to live with the Indignity that was put on Cæsar .’ All we could do, could get no more Words from him; and we took Care to have him put immediately into a healing Bath, to rid him of his Pepper, and ordered a Chirurgeon to anoint him with healing Balm, which he suffer’d, and in some Time he began to be able to walk and eat. We failed not to visit him every Day, and to that End had him brought to an Apartment at Parham .The Governor had no sooner recover’d, and had heard of the Menaces of Cæsar , but he called his Council , who (not to disgrace them, or burlesque the Government there) consisted of such notorious Villains as Newgate never transported; and, possibly, originally were such who understood neither the Laws of God or Man, and had no sort of Principles to make them worthy the Name of Men; but at the very Council-Table would contradict and fight with one another, and swear so bloodily, that ’twas terrible to hear and see ’em. (Some of ’em were afterwards hanged, when the Dutch took Possession of the Place, others sent off in Chains.) But calling these special Rulers of the Nation together, and requiring their Counsel in this weighty Affair, they all concluded, that (damn ’em) it might be their own Cases; and that Cæsar ought to be made an Example to all the Negroes , to fright ’em from daring to threaten their Betters, their Lords and Masters; and at this Rate no Man was safe from his own Slaves; and concluded, nemine contradicente , That Cæsar should be hanged.
Trefry then thought it Time to use his Authority, and told Byam , his Command did not extend to his Lord’s Plantation; and that Parham was as much exempt from the Law as White-Hall ; and that they ought no more to touch the Servants of the Lord—(who there represented the King’s Person) than they could those about the King himself; and that Parham was a Sanctuary; and tho’ his Lord were absent in Person, his Power was still in being there, which he had entrusted with him, as far as the Dominions of his particular Plantations reached, and all that belonged to it; the rest of the Country, as Byam was Lieutenant to his Lord, he might exercise his Tyranny upon. Trefry had others as powerful, or more, that interested themselves in Cæsar’s Life, and absolutely said, he should be defended. So turning the Governor, and his wise Council, out of Doors, (for they sat at Parham-House ) we set a Guard upon our Lodging-Place, and would admit none but those we called Friends to us and Cæsar .
The Governor having remain’d wounded at Parham , till his Recovery was completed, Cæsar did not know but he was still there, and indeed for the most Part, his Time was spent there: for he was one that loved to live at other Peoples Expence, and if he were a Day absent, he was ten present there; and us’d to play, and walk, and hunt, and fish with Cæsar : So that Cæsar did not at all doubt, if he once recover’d Strength, but he should find an Opportunity of being revenged on him; though, after such a Revenge, he could not hope to live: for if he escaped the Fury of the English Mobile, who perhaps would have been glad of the Occasion to have killed him, he was resolved not to survive his Whipping; yet he had some tender Hours, a repenting Softness, which he called his Fits of Cowardice, wherein he struggled with Love for the Victory of his Heart, which took Part with his charming Imoinda there; but for the most Part, his Time was pass’d in melancholy Thoughts, and black Designs. He consider’d, if he should do this Deed, and die either in the Attempt, or after it, he left his lovely Imoinda a Prey, or at best a Slave to the enraged Multitude; his great Heart could not endure that Thought: Perhaps (said he) she may be first ravish’d by every Brute; expos’d first to their nasty Lusts, and then a shameful Death : No, he could not live a Moment under that Apprehension, too insupportable to be borne. These were his Thoughts, and his silent Arguments with his Heart, as he told us afterwards: So that now resolving not only to kill Byam , but all those he thought had enraged him; pleasing his great Heart with the fancy’d Slaughter he should make over the whole Face of the Plantation; he first resolved on a Deed, (that however horrid it first appear’d to us all) when we had heard his Reasons, we thought it brave and just. Being able to walk, and, as he believed, fit for the Execution of his great Design, he begg’d Trefry to trust him into the Air, believing a Walk would do him good; which was granted him; and taking Imoinda with him, as he used to do in his more happy and calmer Days, he led her up into a Wood, where (after with a thousand Sighs, and long gazing silently on her Face, while Tears gush’d, in spite of him, from his Eyes) he told her his Design, first of killing her, and then his Enemies, and next himself, and the Impossibility of escaping, and therefore he told her the Necessity of dying. He found the heroick Wife faster pleading for Death, than he was to propose it, when she found his fix’d Resolution; and, on her Knees, besought him not to leave her a Prey to his Enemies. He (grieved to Death) yet pleased at her noble Resolution, took her up, and embracing of her with all the Passion and Languishment of a dying Lover, drew his Knife to kill this Treasure of his Soul, this Pleasure of his Eyes; while Tears trickled down his Cheeks, hers were smiling with Joy she should die by so noble a Hand, and be sent into her own Country (for that’s their Notion of the next World) by him she so tenderly loved, and so truly ador’d in this: For Wives have a Respect for their Husbands equal to what any other People pay a Deity; and when a Man finds any Occasion to quit his Wife, if he love her, she dies by his Hand; if not, he sells her, or suffers some other to kill her. It being thus, you may believe the Deed was soon resolv’d on; and ’tis not to be doubted, but the parting, the eternal Leave-taking of two such Lovers, so greatly born, so sensible, so beautiful, so young, and so fond, must be very moving, as the Relation of it was to me afterwards.
All that Love could say in such Cases, being ended, and all the intermitting Irresolutions being adjusted, the lovely, young and ador’d Victim lays herself down before the Sacrificer; while he, with a Hand resolved, and a Heart-breaking within, gave the fatal Stroke, first cutting her Throat, and then severing her yet smiling Face from that delicate Body, pregnant as it was with the Fruits of tenderest Love. As soon as he had done, he laid the Body decently on Leaves and Flowers, of which he made a Bed, and conceal’d it under the same Cover-lid of Nature; only her Face he left yet bare to look on: But when he found she was dead, and past all Retrieve, never more to bless him with her Eyes, and soft Language, his Grief swell’d up to Rage; he tore, he rav’d, he roar’d like some Monster of the Wood, calling on the lov’d Name of Imoinda . A thousand Times he turned the fatal Knife that did the Deed towards his own Heart, with a Resolution to go immediately after her; but dire Revenge, which was now a thousand Times more fierce in his Soul than before, prevents him; and he would cry out, ‘No, since I have sacrific’d Imoinda to my Revenge, shall I lose that Glory which I have purchased so dear, as at the Price of the fairest, dearest, softest Creature that ever Nature made? No, no!’ Then at her Name Grief would get the Ascendant of Rage, and he would lie down by her Side, and water her Face with Showers of Tears, which never were wont to fall from those Eyes; and however bent he was on his intended Slaughter, he had not Power to stir from the Sight of this dear Object, now more beloved, and more ador’d than ever.
He remained in this deplorable Condition for two Days, and never rose from the Ground where he had made her sad Sacrifice; at last rouzing from her Side, and accusing himself with living too long, now Imoinda was dead, and that the Deaths of those barbarous Enemies were deferred too long, he resolved now to finish the great Work: but offering to rise, he found his Strength so decay’d, that he reeled to and fro, like Boughs assailed by contrary Winds; so that he was forced to lie down again, and try to summon all his Courage to his Aid. He found his Brains turned round, and his Eyes were dizzy, and Objects appear’d not the same to him they were wont to do; his Breath was short, and all his Limbs surpriz’d with a Faintness he had never felt before. He had not eat in two Days, which was one Occasion of his Feebleness, but Excess of Grief was the greatest; yet still he hoped he should recover Vigour to act his Design, and lay expecting it yet six Days longer; still mourning over the dead Idol of his Heart, and striving every Day to rise, but could not.
In all this time you may believe we were in no little Affliction for Cæsar and his Wife; some were of Opinion he was escaped, never to return; others thought some Accident had happened to him: But however, we fail’d not to send out a hundred People several Ways, to search for him. A Party of about forty went that Way he took, among whom was Tuscan , who was perfectly reconciled to Byam : They had not gone very far into the Wood, but they smelt an unusual Smell, as of a dead Body; for Stinks must be very noisom, that can be distinguish’d among such a Quantity of natural Sweets, as every Inch of that Land produces: so that they concluded they should find him dead, or some body that was so; they pass’d on towards it, as loathsom as it was, and made such rustling among the Leaves that lie thick on the Ground, by continual falling, that Cæsar heard he was approach’d; and though he had, during the Space of these eight Days, endeavour’d to rise, but found he wanted Strength, yet looking up, and seeing his Pursuers, he rose, and reel’d to a neighbouring Tree, against which he fix’d his Back; and being within a dozen Yards of those that advanc’d and saw him, he call’d out to them, and bid them approach no nearer, if they would be safe. So that they stood still, and hardly believing their Eyes, that would persuade them that it was Cæsar that spoke to them, so much he was alter’d; they ask’d him, what he had done with his Wife, for they smelt a Stink that almost struck them dead? He pointing to the dead Body, sighing, cry’d, Behold her there. They put off the Flowers that cover’d her, with their Sticks, and found she was kill’d, and cry’d out, Oh, Monster! that hast murder’d thy Wife. Then asking him, why he did so cruel a Deed? He reply’d, He had no Leisure to answer impertinent Questions: ‘You may go back ( continued he ) and tell the faithless Governor, he may thank Fortune that I am breathing my last; and that my Arm is too feeble to obey my Heart, in what it had design’d him’: But his Tongue faultering, and trembling, he could scarce end what he was saying. The English taking Advantage by his Weakness, cry’d, Let us take him alive by all Means. He heard ’em; and, as if he had reviv’d from a Fainting, or a Dream, he cried out, ‘No, Gentlemen, you are deceived; you will find no more Cæsars to be whipt; no more find a Faith in me; Feeble as you think me, I have Strength yet left to secure me from a second Indignity.’ They swore all anew; and he only shook his Head, and beheld them with Scorn. Then they cry’d out, Who will venture on this single Man? Will nobody? They stood all silent, while Cæsar replied, Fatal will be the Attempt of the first Adventurer, let him assure himself , (and, at that Word, held up his Knife in a menacing Posture:) Look ye, ye faithless Crew , said he, ’tis not Life I seek, nor am I afraid of dying , (and at that Word, cut a Piece of Flesh from his own Throat, and threw it at ’em) yet still I would live if I could, till I had perfected my Revenge: But, oh! it cannot be; I feel Life gliding from my Eyes and Heart; and if I make not haste, I shall fall a Victim to the shameful Whip. At that, he rip’d up his own Belly, and took his Bowels and pull’d ’em out, with what Strength he could; while some, on their Knees imploring, besought him to hold his Hand. But when they saw him tottering, they cry’d out, Will none venture on him? A bold Englishman cry’d, Yes, if he were the Devil , (taking Courage when he saw him almost dead) and swearing a horrid Oath for his farewel to the World, he rush’d on him. Cæsar with his arm’d Hand, met him so fairly, as stuck him to the Heart, and he Fell dead at his feet. Tuscan seeing that, cry’d out, I love thee, O Cæsar ! and therefore will not let thee die, if possible ; and running to him, took him in his Arms; but, at the same time, warding a Blow that Cæsar made at his Bosom, he receiv’d it quite through his Arm; and Cæsar having not Strength to pluck the Knife forth, tho’ he attempted it, Tuscan neither pull’d it out himself, nor suffer’d it to be pull’d out, but came down with it sticking in his Arm; and the Reason he gave for it, was, because the Air should not get into the Wound. They put their Hands a-cross, and carry’d Cæsar between six of ’em, fainting as he was, and they thought dead, or just dying; and they brought him to Parham , and laid him on a Couch, and had the Chirurgeon immediately to him, who dressed his Wounds, and sow’d up his Belly, and us’d Means to bring him to Life, which they effected. We ran all to see him; and, if before we thought him so beautiful a Sight, he was now so alter’d, that his Face was like a Death’s-Head black’d over, nothing but Teeth and Eye-holes: For some Days we suffer’d no Body to speak to him, but caused Cordials to be poured down his Throat; which sustained his Life, and in six or seven Days he recovered his Senses: For, you must know, that Wounds are almost to a Miracle cur’d in the Indies ; unless Wounds in the Legs, which they rarely ever cure.
When he was well enough to speak, we talk’d to him, and ask’d him some Questions about his Wife, and the Reasons why he kill’d her; and he then told us what I have related of that Resolution, and of his Parting, and he besought us we would let him die, and was extremely afflicted to think it was possible he might live: He assur’d us, if we did not dispatch him, he would prove very fatal to a great many. We said all we could to make him live, and gave him new Assurances; but he begg’d we would not think so poorly of him, or of his Love to Imoinda , to imagine we could flatter him to Life again: But the Chirurgeon assur’d him he could not live, and therefore he need not fear. We were all (but Cæsar ) afflicted at this News, and the Sight was ghastly: His Discourse was sad; and the earthy Smell about him so strong, that I was persuaded to leave the Place for some time, (being my self but sickly, and very apt to fall into Fits of dangerous Illness upon any extraordinary Melancholy.) The Servants, and Trefry , and the Chirurgeons, promis’d all to take what possible Care they could of the Life of Cæsar ; and I, taking Boat, went with other Company to Colonel Martin’s , about three Days Journey down the River. But I was no sooner gone, than the Governor taking Trefry , about some pretended earnest Business, a Day’s Journey up the River, having communicated his Design to one Banister , a wild Irish Man, one of the Council, a Fellow of absolute Barbarity, and fit to execute any Villany, but rich; he came up to Parham , and forcibly took Cæsar , and had him carried to the same Post where he was whipp’d; and causing him to be ty’d to it, and a great Fire made before him, he told him he should die like a Dog, as he was. Cæsar replied, This was the first piece of Bravery that ever Banister did, and he never spoke Sense till he pronounc’d that Word; and if he would keep it, he would declare, in the other World, that he was the only Man, of all the Whites , that ever he heard speak Truth. And turning to the Men that had bound him, he said, My Friends, am I to die, or to be whipt? And they cry’d, Whipt! no, you shall not escape so well. And then he reply’d, smiling, A Blessing on thee ; and assur’d them they need not tie him, for he would stand fix’d like a Rock, and endure Death so as should encourage them to die: But if you whip me (said he) be sure you tie me fast .
 My Mother and Sister were by him all the While, but not suffer’d to save him; so rude and wild were the Rabble, and so inhuman were the Justices who stood by to see the Execution, who after paid dear enough for their Insolence. They cut Cæsar into Quarters, and sent them to several of the chief Plantations: One Quarter was sent to Colonel Martin ; who refus’d it, and swore, he had rather see the Quarters of Banister , and the Governor himself, than those of Cæsar , on his Plantations; and that he could govern his Negroes , without terrifying and grieving them with frightful Spectacles of a mangled King.
Thus died this great Man, worthy of a better Fate, and a more sublime Wit than mine to write his Praise: Yet, I hope, the Reputation of my Pen is considerable enough to make his glorious Name to survive to all Ages, with that of the brave, the beautiful and the constant Imoinda .
- Oroonoko; Or the Royal Slave. Authored by : Aphra Behn. Located at : https://www.gutenberg.org/files/29854/29854-h/29854-h.htm#oroonoko . License : Public Domain: No Known Copyright


8.5: Microbial Relationships
- Describe the idea of the ubiquity of prokaryotes in various habitats on earth
- Describe the range of relationships prokaryote have with other organisms on earth
- Identify and describe symbiotic relationships
- Compare normal/commensal/resident microbiota to transient microbiota
Prokaryotes are ubiquitous. They can be found everywhere on our planet, even in hot springs, in the Antarctic ice shield, and under extreme pressure two miles under water. One bacterium, Paracoccus denitrificans , has even been shown to survive when scientists removed it from its native environment (soil) and used a centrifuge to subject it to forces of gravity as strong as those found on the surface of Jupiter.
Prokaryotes also are abundant on and within the human body. According to a report by National Institutes of Health, prokaryotes, especially bacteria, outnumber human cells 10:1. 1 More recent studies suggest the ratio could be closer to 1:1, but even that ratio means that there are a great number of bacteria within the human body. 2 Bacteria thrive in the human mouth, nasal cavity, throat, ears, gastrointestinal tract, and vagina. Large colonies of bacteria can be found on healthy human skin, especially in moist areas (armpits, navel, and areas behind ears). However, even drier areas of the skin are not free from bacteria.
The existence of prokaryotes is very important for the stability and thriving of ecosystems. For example, they are a necessary part of soil formation and stabilization processes through the breakdown of organic matter and development of biofilms. One gram of soil contains up to 10 billion microorganisms (most of them prokaryotic) belonging to about 1,000 species. Many species of bacteria use substances released from plant roots, such as acids and carbohydrates, as nutrients. The bacteria metabolize these plant substances and release the products of bacterial metabolism back to the soil, forming humus and thus increasing the soil’s fertility. In salty lakes such as the Dead Sea (Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\)), salt-loving halobacteria decompose dead brine shrimp and nourish young brine shrimp and flies with the products of bacterial metabolism.
In addition to living in the ground and the water, prokaryotic microorganisms are abundant in the air, even high in the atmosphere. There may be up to 2,000 different kinds of bacteria in the air, similar to their diversity in the soil.
Prokaryotes can be found everywhere on earth because they are extremely resilient and adaptable. They are often metabolically flexible, which means that they might easily switch from one energy source to another, depending on the availability of the sources, or from one metabolic pathway to another. For example, certain prokaryotic cyanobacteria can switch from a conventional type of lipid metabolism, which includes production of fatty aldehydes, to a different type of lipid metabolism that generates biofuel, such as fatty acids and wax esters. Groundwater bacteria store complex high-energy carbohydrates when grown in pure groundwater, but they metabolize these molecules when the groundwater is enriched with phosphates. Some bacteria get their energy by reducing sulfates into sulfides, but can switch to a different metabolic pathway when necessary, producing acids and free hydrogen ions.
Prokaryotes perform functions vital to life on earth by capturing (or “fixing”) and recycling elements like carbon and nitrogen. Organisms such as animals require organic carbon to grow, but, unlike prokaryotes, they are unable to use inorganic carbon sources like carbon dioxide. Thus, animals rely on prokaryotes to convert carbon dioxide into organic carbon products that they can use. This process of converting carbon dioxide to organic carbon products is called carbon fixation.
Plants and animals also rely heavily on prokaryotes for nitrogen fixation, the conversion of atmospheric nitrogen into ammonia, a compound that some plants can use to form many different biomolecules necessary to their survival. Bacteria in the genus Rhizobium , for example, are nitrogen-fixing bacteria; they live in the roots of legume plants such as clover, alfalfa, and peas (Figure \(\PageIndex{2}\)). Ammonia produced by Rhizobium helps these plants to survive by enabling them to make building blocks of nucleic acids. In turn, these plants may be eaten by animals—sustaining their growth and survival—or they may die, in which case the products of nitrogen fixation will enrich the soil and be used by other plants.
Another positive function of prokaryotes is in cleaning up the environment. Recently, some researchers focused on the diversity and functions of prokaryotes in manmade environments. They found that some bacteria play a unique role in degrading toxic chemicals that pollute water and soil. 3
Despite all of the positive and helpful roles prokaryotes play, some are human pathogens that may cause illness or infection when they enter the body. In addition, some bacteria can contaminate food, causing spoilage or foodborne illness, which makes them subjects of concern in food preparation and safety. Less than 1% of prokaryotes (all of them bacteria) are thought to be human pathogens, but collectively these species are responsible for a large number of the diseases that afflict humans.
Besides pathogens, which have a direct impact on human health, prokaryotes also affect humans in many indirect ways. For example, prokaryotes are now thought to be key players in the processes of climate change. In recent years, as temperatures in the earth’s polar regions have risen, soil that was formerly frozen year-round (permafrost) has begun to thaw. Carbon trapped in the permafrost is gradually released and metabolized by prokaryotes. This produces massive amounts of carbon dioxide and methane, greenhouse gases that escape into the atmosphere and contribute to the greenhouse effect.
- In what types of environments can prokaryotes be found?
- Name some ways that plants and animals rely on prokaryotes.
Symbiotic Relationships
Prokaryotic microorganisms can associate with plants and animals. Often, this association results in unique relationships between organisms. For example, bacteria living on the roots or leaves of a plant get nutrients from the plant and, in return, produce substances that protect the plant from pathogens. On the other hand, some bacteria are plant pathogens that use mechanisms of infection similar to bacterial pathogens of animals and humans.
Prokaryotes live in a community, or a group of interacting populations of organisms. A population is a group of individual organisms belonging to the same biological species and limited to a certain geographic area. Populations can have cooperative interactions, which benefit the populations, or competitive interactions, in which one population competes with another for resources. The study of these interactions between populations is called microbial ecology.
Any interaction between different species within a community is called symbiosis. Such interactions fall along a continuum between opposition and cooperation. Interactions in a symbiotic relationship may be beneficial or harmful, or have no effect on one or both of the species involved. Table \(\PageIndex{1}\) summarizes the main types of symbiotic interactions among prokaryotes.
| Type | Population A | Population B |
|---|---|---|
| Mutualism | Benefitted | Benefitted |
| Amensalism | Harmed | Unaffected |
| Commensalism | Benefitted | Unaffected |
| Neutralism | Unaffected | Unaffected |
| Parasitism | Benefitted | Harmed |
When two species benefit from each other, the symbiosis is called mutualism (or syntropy, or crossfeeding). For example, humans have a mutualistic relationship with the bacterium Bacteroides thetaiotetraiotamicron , which lives in the intestinal tract. B. thetaiotetraiotamicron digests complex polysaccharide plant materials that human digestive enzymes cannot break down, converting them into monosaccharides that can be absorbed by human cells. Humans also have a mutualistic relationship with certain strains of Escherichia coli , another bacterium found in the gut. E. coli relies on intestinal contents for nutrients, and humans derive certain vitamins from E. coli, particularly vitamin K, which is required for the formation of blood clotting factors. (This is only true for some strains of E. coli , however. Other strains are pathogenic and do not have a mutualistic relationship with humans.)
A type of symbiosis in which one population harms another but remains unaffected itself is called amensalism. In the case of bacteria, some amensalist species produce bactericidal substances that kill other species of bacteria. For example, the bacterium Lucilia sericata produces a protein that destroys Staphylococcus aureus , a bacterium commonly found on the surface of the human skin. Too much handwashing can affect this relationship and lead to S. aureus diseases and transmission.
In another type of symbiosis, called commensalism, one organism benefits while the other is unaffected. This occurs when the bacterium Staphylococcus epidermidis uses the dead cells of the human skin as nutrients. Billions of these bacteria live on our skin, but in most cases (especially when our immune system is healthy), we do not react to them in any way.
If neither of the symbiotic organisms is affected in any way, we call this type of symbiosis neutralism. An example of neutralism is the coexistence of metabolically active (vegetating) bacteria and endospores (dormant, metabolically passive bacteria). For example, the bacterium Bacillus anthracis typically forms endospores in soil when conditions are unfavorable. If the soil is warmed and enriched with nutrients, some endospores germinate and remain in symbiosis with other endospores that have not germinated.
A type of symbiosis in which one organism benefits while harming the other is called parasitism. The relationship between humans and many pathogenic prokaryotes can be characterized as parasitic because these organisms invade the body, producing toxic substances or infectious diseases that cause harm. Diseases such as tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis, tuberculosis, and leprosy all arise from interactions between bacteria and humans.
The Microbiome
Scientists have coined the term microbiome to refer to all prokaryotic and eukaryotic microorganisms that are associated with a certain organism. Within the human microbiome, there are resident microbiota and transient microbiota. The resident microbiota consists of microorganisms that constantly live in or on our bodies. The term transient microbiota refers to microorganisms that are only temporarily found in the human body, and these may include pathogenic microorganisms. Hygiene and diet can alter both the resident and transient microbiota.
The resident microbiota is amazingly diverse, not only in terms of the variety of species but also in terms of the preference of different microorganisms for different areas of the human body. For example, in the human mouth, there are thousands of commensal or mutualistic species of bacteria. Some of these bacteria prefer to inhabit the surface of the tongue, whereas others prefer the internal surface of the cheeks, and yet others prefer the front or back teeth or gums. The inner surface of the cheek has the least diverse microbiota because of its exposure to oxygen. By contrast, the crypts of the tongue and the spaces between teeth are two sites with limited oxygen exposure, so these sites have more diverse microbiota, including bacteria living in the absence of oxygen (e.g., Bacteroides , Fusobacterium ). Differences in the oral microbiota between randomly chosen human individuals are also significant. Studies have shown, for example, that the prevalence of such bacteria as Streptococcus , Haemophilus , Neisseria , and others was dramatically different when compared between individuals. 4
There are also significant differences between the microbiota of different sites of the same human body. The inner surface of the cheek has a predominance of Streptococcus , whereas in the throat, the palatine tonsil, and saliva, there are two to three times fewer Streptococcus , and several times more Fusobacterium . In the plaque removed from gums, the predominant bacteria belong to the genus Fusobacterium. However, in the intestine, both Streptococcus and Fusobacterium disappear, and the genus Bacteroides becomes predominant.
Not only can the microbiota vary from one body site to another, the microbiome can also change over time within the same individual. Humans acquire their first inoculations of normal flora during natural birth and shortly after birth. Before birth, there is a rapid increase in the population of Lactobacillus spp. in the vagina, and this population serves as the first colonization of microbiota during natural birth. After birth, additional microbes are acquired from health-care providers, parents, other relatives, and individuals who come in contact with the baby. This process establishes a microbiome that will continue to evolve over the course of the individual’s life as new microbes colonize and are eliminated from the body. For example, it is estimated that within a 9-hour period, the microbiota of the small intestine can change so that half of the microbial inhabitants will be different. 5 The importance of the initial Lactobacillus colonization during vaginal child birth is highlighted by studies demonstrating a higher incidence of diseases in individuals born by cesarean section, compared to those born vaginally. Studies have shown that babies born vaginally are predominantly colonized by vaginal lactobacillus, whereas babies born by cesarean section are more frequently colonized by microbes of the normal skin microbiota, including common hospital-acquired pathogens.
Throughout the body, resident microbiotas are important for human health because they occupy niches that might be otherwise taken by pathogenic microorganisms. For instance, Lactobacillus spp. are the dominant bacterial species of the normal vaginal microbiota for most women. Lactobacillus produce lactic acid, contributing to the acidity of the vagina and inhibiting the growth of pathogenic yeasts. However, when the population of the resident microbiota is decreased for some reason (e.g., because of taking antibiotics), the pH of the vagina increases, making it a more favorable environment for the growth of yeasts such as Candida albicans . Antibiotic therapy can also disrupt the microbiota of the intestinal tract and respiratory tract, increasing the risk for secondary infections and/or promoting the long-term carriage and shedding of pathogens. This will be discussed more in chapter 12.
- Explain the difference between cooperative and competitive interactions in microbial communities.
- List the types of symbiosis and explain how each population is affected.
The Human Microbiome Project was launched by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 2008. One main goal of the project is to create a large repository of the gene sequences of important microbes found in humans, helping biologists and clinicians understand the dynamics of the human microbiome and the relationship between the human microbiota and diseases. A network of labs working together has been compiling the data from swabs of several areas of the skin, gut, and mouth from hundreds of individuals.
One of the challenges in understanding the human microbiome has been the difficulty of culturing many of the microbes that inhabit the human body. It has been estimated that we are only able to culture 1% of the bacteria in nature and that we are unable to grow the remaining 99%. To address this challenge, researchers have used metagenomic analysis, which studies genetic material harvested directly from microbial communities, as opposed to that of individual species grown in a culture. This allows researchers to study the genetic material of all microbes in the microbiome, rather than just those that can be cultured. 6
One important achievement of the Human Microbiome Project is establishing the first reference database on microorganisms living in and on the human body. Many of the microbes in the microbiome are beneficial, but some are not. It was found, somewhat unexpectedly, that all of us have some serious microbial pathogens in our microbiota. For example, the conjunctiva of the human eye contains 24 genera of bacteria and numerous pathogenic species. 7 A healthy human mouth contains a number of species of the genus Streptococcus , including pathogenic species S. pyogenes and S. pneumoniae . 8 This raises the question of why certain prokaryotic organisms exist commensally in certain individuals but act as deadly pathogens in others. Also unexpected was the number of organisms that had never been cultured. For example, in one metagenomic study of the human gut microbiota, 174 new species of bacteria were identified. 9
Another goal for the near future is to characterize the human microbiota in patients with different diseases and to find out whether there are any relationships between the contents of an individual’s microbiota and risk for or susceptibility to specific diseases. Analyzing the microbiome in a person with a specific disease may reveal new ways to fight diseases.
Key Concepts and Summary
- Prokaryotes can be found everywhere on our planet, even in the most extreme environments.
- Prokaryotes are very flexible metabolically, so they are able to adjust their feeding to the available natural resources.
- Prokaryotes live in communities that interact among themselves and with large organisms that they use as hosts (including humans).
- Interactions are symbiotic and can be classified into several different types including mutualism, amensalism, commensalism, neutralism and parasitism.
- The totality of forms of prokaryotes (particularly bacteria) living on the human body is called the human microbiome, which varies between regions of the body and individuals, and changes over time.
- The totality of forms of prokaryotes (particularly bacteria) living in a certain region of the human body (e.g., mouth, throat, gut, eye, vagina) is called the microbiota of this region.
Footnotes
- Medical Press. “Mouth Bacteria Can Change Their Diet, Supercomputers Reveal.” August 12, 2014. medicalxpress.com/news/2014-0...rs-reveal.html. Accessed February 24, 2015.
- A. Abbott. “Scientists Bust Myth That Our Bodies Have More Bacteria Than Human Cells: Decades-Old Assumption about Microbiota Revisited.” Nature. http://www.nature.com/news/scientist...-cells-1.19136 . Accessed June 3, 2016.
- A.M. Kravetz “Unique Bacteria Fights Man-Made Chemical Waste.” 2012. www.livescience.com/25181-bac...s-nsf-bts.html. Accessed March 9, 2015.
- E.M. Bik et al. “Bacterial Diversity in the Oral Cavity of 10 Healthy Individuals.” The ISME Journal 4 no. 8 (2010):962–974.
- C.C. Booijink et al. “High Temporal and Intra-Individual Variation Detected in the Human Ileal Microbiota.” Environmental Microbiology 12 no. 12 (2010):3213–3227.
- National Institutes of Health. “Human Microbiome Project. Overview.” commonfund.nih.gov/hmp/overview. Accessed June 7, 2016.
- Q. Dong et al. “Diversity of Bacteria at Healthy Human Conjunctiva.” Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science 52 no. 8 (2011):5408–5413.
- F.E. Dewhirst et al. “The Human Oral Microbiome.” Journal of Bacteriology 192 no. 19 (2010):5002–5017.
- J.C. Lagier et al. “Microbial Culturomics: Paradigm Shift in the Human Gut Microbiome Study.” Clinical Microbiology and Infection 18 no. 12 (2012):1185–1193.
Contributors and Attributions
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Nina Parker, (Shenandoah University), Mark Schneegurt (Wichita State University), Anh-Hue Thi Tu (Georgia Southwestern State University), Philip Lister (Central New Mexico Community College), and Brian M. Forster (Saint Joseph’s University) with many contributing authors. Original content via Openstax (CC BY 4.0; Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/microbiology/pages/1-introduction )


1.23: Jealousy
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Learning Objectives
- Summarize the differences between rational jealousy and irrational jealousy.
Watch this video or scan the QR code to see how you can deal with jealousy.
I think there are two types of jealousy or at least two different kinds of conditions under which it occurs. One sort is rational and justified; the other, not, though it is at least as powerful, probably even more so, and is certainly very devastating when it occurs.
The first type of jealousy, jealousy for a good reason, is that jealousy over someone’s unfairly depriving you of the joys and benefits you should have with your partner. If a man, for example, talks his wife into accompanying him on a business trip she would rather not go on, and then spends his free time with other people, ignoring her and letting her be miserable, she has a right to be disappointed and angry, as well as jealous of whoever monopolizes her husband’s time.
Similarly, if a parent spends an unwarranted amount of time with one child at the expense of another (roughly equating quality and quantity of time here just for the sake of discussion), it seems justified that the neglected child should feel hurt and jealous.
This is not to imply that a man is always responsible for his wife’s entertainment or well-being, nor that a parent is always responsible for his child’s entertainment. However, there are some times and some situations where one does have an obligation to spend time with one’s spouse or one’s children. And when such an obligation is inexcusably not met, the partner or child being neglected has a right to be disappointed, hurt, or jealous of whoever is taking up the parent’s or partner’s time.
Alienation of affection or alienation of the amount of good or satisfaction or energy spent with a partner also can arouse justifiable jealousy. If a woman, for example, will not go with her husband to a movie she already knew he wanted to see with her because she saw it instead with a friend, then the husband has a right to be jealous of the friend — even though the wife and friend went at a time that the husband could not have gone anyway. The wife and friend were not thereby taking the wife’s time away from her husband, but they were taking away from him an enjoyment — one in this case that arguably should have been his. Likewise, even if a new relationship were to take no time away from an old relationship, but were to ruin it because the person involved in both relationships only had the energy or the character to treat one (the new) partner nicely, the old partner would have a right to be jealous. (This is if he or she were not a contributing factor to this alienation or a deserving beneficiary of it by, say, having treated the alienated partner unfairly, causing most of the alienation him or her self.)
The kind of jealousy that is often so miserably debilitating though, and irrational, is the sort by a partner that would deny a loved one happiness or benefit from another which in no way would impinge upon their relationship with that partner. The only remotely rational element to this kind of jealousy is the concern that such a relationship might later become one that so impinges; but insofar as it is not likely to later and does not now, jealousy of it is irrational. To call this kind of jealousy insane jealousy is in some cases simultaneously to describe the cause and the behavior it prompts.
There are perhaps two reasons or causes, both unjustified, for a person’s being jealous over the happiness another brings his or her partner — happiness that in no way (besides the irrational jealousy it provokes) detrimentally affects the first relationship: (1) the false belief that there is one and only one person “perfect” for each of us so that if anyone else is good for our love, we must not be, and (2) the virtually unfulfillable desire to be all things to a loved one, their one and only source of happiness and benefit. We see this latter sometimes in a husband who is jealous of wealthier parents-in-law who provide things for their daughter that he cannot afford to give her, or of a wife who is jealous of someone (such as her mother-in-law) whose cooking her husband raves about. We hear it implied in the lament of a person whose partner cheated on them that they must have done something wrong to the cheating partner, for if they had made the cheater happy in the first place, the cheater would not have had to look and go elsewhere for satisfaction. (This is not necessarily true. The cheater may have been happy at home — as well as happy where he or she was cheating.)
Concerning (1) above, it simply seems false to me that there is only one right person for each of us. We find love too often when we are looking for it (after breaking up, after divorce, while we are in college, etc., etc.) for it to be so rare. If there were just one person who would be one’s ideal mate, it seems to me that it would be highly unlikely anyone would ever find their love or ideal mate. Yet many people are happily married or happily living together or happily going together. And each of them could probably be just as happy with many, many others, had they met them instead or had they met them first. That your partner finds someone else who can make her or him happy in some way or other should not be terribly surprising; if it in no way harms or even affects your relationship (apart from your jealousy), it should not be particularly annoying.
Concerning (2), it is practically impossible for any one person to be the sole joy or entertainment for someone else, satisfying all their wants or desires, unless the partner has only the simple desires of a puppy or a pet rock. The interests of most alert, educated, active people are simply too diverse and numerous to expect them all to be satisfiable by any one other person — a person whose areas of interest and competence mesh in just the right way so that both parties benefit and satisfy each other with no need or desire remaining for the joys others can provide.
Further, I doubt most people even want to have daily 24 hour companionship with their loved ones; people often want to be alone for time to themselves, and sometimes they want to be with other people for variety, change of pace, learning new things, getting new perspectives, or even to talk (or complain) about their partner. In general, we simply depend on a number of different relationships and different sorts of relationships as we go through life. It is rare and highly unlikely that any two people can provide each other with all the joy and benefit either of them would ever need or want.
In an interesting and apocryphal movie, Le Bon Heur in the late 1960s, the main character is fairly happily married, but he also falls in love with a second woman with whom he maintains a clandestine and happy affair for a long period of time, most of it during the day when the man is supposedly at work. He is not taking time away from his wife (though I cannot recall how he was able to get quite as much work done to make a living as he needed to). He is supremely happy both with his wife and with his new lover. Because of this happiness, he seems to have unleashed new resources of energy in all aspects of his life, including his marriage. He goes home happier, is far more attentive to his wife and children, somehow becomes even a better lover to his wife, and just, in general, is a better husband, father, and person. One day on a family picnic his wife tells him how happy he has made her (during what is this span of time since he has also been in love with the other woman), how he seems to have been transformed into so much better a husband than he ever was before and that she could have ever hoped to have married. Unable to contain his joy and enthusiasm any longer, he tells her the secret, believing, of course, that since she has recognized and just told him how good this makes things for everyone concerned, she will understand, accept, and even appreciate the situation. Of course, instead, she is devastated, becomes practically catatonic as she sees her whole life and happiness being taken from her in one brief announcement. She walks off in a grief-stricken trance and drowns (herself).
The reaction he expected her to have was unrealistic; her actual reaction was quite realistic and natural. Yet somehow, in the context of the film, his expectation seems the rational one, and her reaction, the irrational one. Jealousy in a case like this, if there could be such a case, is quite puzzling in that it seems at once unreasonable and unavoidable. Had he had (and been through with) his affair before he met his wife and become the kind of husband she adored because of it, she probably would not have minded the affair at all. We generally seem not to mind (though some people do) that one has been in love before they loved us. But we don’t want them to fall or be in love with someone else, once or while they love us. In the movie Bus Stop , the female protagonist feels she should tell the man who loves her about her sordid past.
He loves her and has unabashedly courted her and she has begun to fall in love with him. She feels she should be honest with him though she is very ashamed of her past and embarrassed about it. It is very difficult for her to talk about the subject, but she feels he has a right to know. She wants to confess about her past to him and it is obvious to him that this is very difficult and painful for her. In one of the more poignant and memorable moments in the history of film, he stops her from confessing anything to him about her past that she is ashamed of, and simply says to her that he is just grateful for how she is, so he does not need to know, and cannot complain about, how she got that way. Regardless of how fictitious the story, the audience’s reaction at this point is warmly sympathetic and natural — one is not inclined to feel this guy is a fool and that she is a worthless tramp that he should abandon and forget.
In real life, most people do not tend to be particularly jealous of their partner’s past loves, only ones that appear during or after their own. This is, of course, only when old ghosts are laid to rest and old flames are not rekindled (some people need reassurance that, as the song goes, old flames can’t hold a candle to them). People tend not to take kindly to being compared to their partner’s ex-loves, and often people get very jealous when old (and known to be dear) flames reappear.
Now, I have not mentioned sex in particular in regard to jealousy, since sex is not the only consideration for jealousy, and in some cases is not a factor in jealousy at all, even when one’s love is known to be engaging in sex with someone else. Jealousy can be over a loved one’s work that takes time away from a partner; it can be over a partner’s taking someone to lunch while his mate has to work; it can be over a partner’s having too animated a conversation with someone else at a party, particularly when he or she was not having so animated a conversation with the jealous partner earlier. It can arise because a loved one helped someone a little too willingly (particularly if the jealous partner thinks the beneficiary was attractive) or because the loved one accepted help a little too readily from the other person. Ex-wives and ex-husbands, even those who were the ones who wanted and initiated the divorce, often find themselves terribly jealous when their ex-spouse remarries, even though they do not want the spouse themselves. And in one such case, the ex-wife was particularly jealous and upset, not because of the sexual aspect of the relationship of the former husband with his new wife, but because he now did the kinds of things graciously with his new wife that he would only do grudgingly, if at all, with his former wife. He bought and wore the kinds of clothes now that she had always futilely wanted him to; he happily went to parties where he was a sociable guest and helped entertain people at home, etc. He seemed to willingly do for (and with) his new wife all the kinds of things he had avoided or had done unwillingly for his ex-wife. It is often nice to have a relationship with someone who has been “broken in” the right way by someone else, but it is rather hurtfully disappointing to have been the one doing the “breaking in” only to have someone else reap the benefits of your work and aggravation at making your (ex-)spouse receptive to your way of doing things.
My contention that continued and acknowledged sex outside of a relationship is, in some cases, not the cause for jealousy is supported by the fact that in the case of extra-marital romances (or extra-relationship romances) the new lover is hardly ever bothered by the fact that his or her partner still has sex with their spouse (or old partner). At least not while the (old) relationship is still in force; a new lover might become jealous if his or her mate continues to have sex with her or his former partner after divorcing the former partner.
Rape also is not sex that would make the rape victim’s spouse jealous; though seduction would. It seems that as long as the spouse or love is not totally happy or willing about the sexual act, there is no jealousy. Jealousy tends to arise, whether in a sexual context or not, when the spouse or lover enters willingly or joyfully or voluntarily into the action.
The reported cases where even this is not a cause for jealousy, even with sex, are occurrences of mate- swapping, threesomes, and orgies where both members of the relationship knowingly and willingly, and perhaps simultaneously, allow and experience sexual relations with others. Jealousy though sometimes occurs in such situations, particularly where one of the partners seems to enjoy the experience much more than the other does. But since seemingly relatively few people participate in orgies or mate-swapping and since it is not really clear how much this enhances or does not harm their relationships, I do not really want to put too much store in this particular behavior as evidence about extra-relationship sex not necessarily being a cause of jealousy.
Now jealousy, in general, is very often difficult to distinguish, as a feeling, from feeling hurt or disappointed or left out and/or angry over your partner’s having been cheating on you, particularly when you feel such cheating has also caused them to treat you badly in ways other than just deceiving you. Some may want to call what I have labeled as justified or rational jealousy instead of justified disappointment and/or anger at another’s cheating on you and robbing you of the time, energy, enjoyment, or benefit you deserve. Whatever kind of analytic, verbal, or ethical distinctions may be made between such feelings, or the cases that prompt them, it will be difficult or impossible to feel these distinctions psychologically in order to tell whether one is feeling hurt, disappointed, jealous, or all of the above. It is often difficult to tell whether you feel irrationally jealous or whether you feel the way you do because you are sure your love is now treating you in some undeserved second- class way because of his relationship with the object of your jealousy. You may also feel your partner is making a mistake and has made a terrible choice of a new partner, or that may just be sour grapes; it will be hard to tell. It would be fair to be upset and disappointed if you were being treated second-class — if you were being taken advantage of and being treated rudely or unlovingly (in the sense of inconsiderately) just because your partner now put his or her affections, time, and energy elsewhere while “dangling” you. But sometimes one might believe they are feeling such justified disappointment and anger when actually they have not been mistreated at all and are only feeling some sort of anger and disappointment over hurt pride and having been deceived (though the affair itself did not hurt them).
Irrational jealousy and justifiably feeling wronged are not the only kinds of feelings people can have that are difficult to distinguish internally from their “feel”. I have already mentioned the case of being unable to distinguish between feeling fear of getting caught and feeling guilty about doing something. And as with irrational jealousy and rational jealousy, these two feelings have a vast difference in their logic — in what they refer to or mean. To feel guilty is to feel you have intentionally done something wrong with no excuse and to regret having done it, whereas feeling fear of being caught may have nothing to do with your feeling you are doing anything wrong nor with remorse, but may have to do simply with fear that others who might discover you would disapprove and invoke a penalty or humiliation for your action. These two feelings, if they can be distinguished in how they feel, can sometimes only be so distinguished after being caught or after a period of time of not being caught. If you still have the feeling either (1) after you have been caught and treated the way you feared, or not treated badly at all, or (2) when, after a period in which you have not been caught, you finally feel secure that you will not be discovered, then probably guilt is what you felt and feel. If, however, you do not feel bad after being caught or after feeling safe, then probably your bad feeling was just fear of being caught rather than guilt.
[Sometimes we speak of guilt concerning acts we did that we believe were right but that we believe others would disapprove of or believe wrong. And though the feeling might be the same as the feeling of guilt, it is not the feeling of guilt; you cannot feel guilty if you are doing what you feel is not wrong, you can only feel just like you feel when you feel guilty. Of course, it is easier to just say you feel guilty for having (ignored your mother’s erroneous preaching, or whatever) than to say you feel like you feel guilty. But it is not really a feeling of guilt since you do not feel you have done anything wrong.]
There are a number of feelings, difficult to distinguish internally from just their feelings, that arise from logically different causes and that rationally involve logically different responses. Rational and irrational jealousy are just two of them, and it is better in their case generally to try to figure out just what you feel and why before you angrily denounce an innocent spouse for a disappointment which you strongly feel as a wrong but that is not really justified by his or her behavior. I would think it would be more productive to begin a conversation talking about how you feel jealous, hurt, left out, or unappreciated rather than how your partner has hurt you unless you have conclusive reason to believe you have been wronged. Starting off a discussion by angrily accusing someone of wrongdoing on the basis of a feeling, particularly one that may not be what you think it is, could do much more damage to the relationship than good. And if you find out for certain that you have a right to be angry and rationally jealous, you can always then make that point, even vehemently if that would be better.
Key Takeaways
- Rational jealousy is justified resentment, disappointment, and hurt of someone else’s depriving one of the joys and benefits one should have with one’s partner, by the other person’s having or giving the partner those joys or benefits instead. Irrational jealousy is the resentment of anyone’s benefiting your loved one in a way or under circumstances which you could not benefit them anyway and which does not take anything away from you.
Key Terms
- To feel guilty in a relationship is to feel you have intentionally done something wrong with no excuse and to regret having done it.
- Feeling fear of being caught may have nothing to do with your feeling you are doing anything wrong nor with remorse, but may have to do simply with fear that others who might discover you would disapprove and invoke a penalty or humiliation for your action.
Review Questions
- Question : What are the conditions in which jealousy occurs?
- Question: When is jealousy justified?


1.2: Physical Quantities and Units
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Perform unit conversions both in the SI and English units.
- Explain the most common prefixes in the SI units and be able to write them in scientific notation.
The range of objects and phenomena studied in physics is immense. From the incredibly short lifetime of a nucleus to the age of the Earth, from the tiny sizes of sub-nuclear particles to the vast distance to the edges of the known universe, from the force exerted by a jumping flea to the force between Earth and the Sun, there are enough factors of \(10\) to challenge the imagination of even the most experienced scientist. Giving numerical values for physical quantities and equations for physical principles allows us to understand nature much more deeply than does qualitative description alone. To comprehend these vast ranges, we must also have accepted units in which to express them. And we shall find that (even in the potentially mundane discussion of meters, kilograms, and seconds) a profound simplicity of nature appears—all physical quantities can be expressed as combinations of only four fundamental physical quantities: length, mass, time, and electric current.
We define a physical quantity either by specifying how it is measured or by stating how it is calculated from other measurements. For example, we define distance and time by specifying methods for measuring them, whereas we define average speed by stating that it is calculated as distance traveled divided by time of travel.
Measurements of physical quantities are expressed in terms of units , which are standardized values. For example, the length of a race, which is a physical quantity, can be expressed in units of meters (for sprinters) or kilometers (for distance runners). Without standardized units, it would be extremely difficult for scientists to express and compare measured values in a meaningful way (Figure \(\PageIndex{2}\)).
There are two major systems of units used in the world: SI units (also known as the metric system) and English units (also known as the customary or imperial system). English units were historically used in nations once ruled by the British Empire and are still widely used in the United States. Virtually every other country in the world now uses SI units as the standard; the metric system is also the standard system agreed upon by scientists and mathematicians. The acronym “SI” is derived from the French Système International .
SI Units: Fundamental and Derived Units
Table \(\PageIndex{1}\) gives the fundamental SI units that are used throughout this textbook. This text uses non-SI units in a few applications where they are in very common use, such as the measurement of blood pressure in millimeters of mercury (mm Hg). Whenever non-SI units are discussed, they will be tied to SI units through conversions.
| Length | Mass | Time | Electric Current |
|---|---|---|---|
| meter (m) | kilogram (kg) | second (s) | ampere (A) |
It is an intriguing fact that some physical quantities are more fundamental than others and that the most fundamental physical quantities can be defined only in terms of the procedure used to measure them. The units in which they are measured are thus called fundamental units . In this textbook, the fundamental physical quantities are taken to be length, mass, time, and electric current. (Note that electric current will not be introduced until much later in this text.) All other physical quantities, such as force and electric charge, can be expressed as algebraic combinations of length, mass, time, and current (for example, speed is length divided by time); these units are called derived units .
Units of Time, Length, and Mass: The Second, Meter, and Kilogram
The Second
The SI unit for time, the second (abbreviated s), has a long history. For many years it was defined as 1/86,400 of a mean solar day. More recently, a new standard was adopted to gain greater accuracy and to define the second in terms of a non-varying, or constant, physical phenomenon (because the solar day is getting longer due to very gradual slowing of the Earth’s rotation). Cesium atoms can be made to vibrate in a very steady way, and these vibrations can be readily observed and counted. In 1967, the second was redefined as the time required for 9,192,631,770 of these vibrations (Figure \(\PageIndex{3}\)). Accuracy in the fundamental units is essential, because all measurements are ultimately expressed in terms of fundamental units and can be no more accurate than are the fundamental units themselves.
The Meter
The SI unit for length is the meter (abbreviated m); its definition has also changed over time to become more accurate and precise. The meter was first defined in 1791 as 1/10,000,000 of the distance from the equator to the North Pole. This measurement was improved in 1889 by redefining the meter to be the distance between two engraved lines on a platinum-iridium bar now kept near Paris. By 1960, it had become possible to define the meter even more accurately in terms of the wavelength of light, so it was again redefined as 1,650,763.73 wavelengths of orange light emitted by krypton atoms. In 1983, the meter was given its present definition (partly for greater accuracy) as the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second (Figure \(\PageIndex{4}\)). This change defines the speed of light to be exactly 299,792,458 meters per second. The length of the meter will change if the speed of light is someday measured with greater accuracy.
The Kilogram
The SI unit for mass is the kilogram (abbreviated kg); it is defined to be the mass of a platinum-iridium cylinder kept with the old meter standard at the International Bureau of Weights and Measures near Paris. Exact replicas of the standard kilogram are also kept at the United States’ National Institute of Standards and Technology, or NIST, located in Gaithersburg, Maryland outside of Washington D.C., and at other locations around the world. The determination of all other masses can be ultimately traced to a comparison with the standard mass.
Electric current and its accompanying unit, the ampere, will be introduced in Introduction to Electric Current, Resistance, and Ohm's Law when electricity and magnetism are covered. The initial modules in this textbook are concerned with mechanics, fluids, heat, and waves. In these subjects all pertinent physical quantities can be expressed in terms of the fundamental units of length, mass, and time.
Metric Prefixes
SI units are part of the metric system . The metric system is convenient for scientific and engineering calculations because the units are categorized by factors of 10. Table 2 gives metric prefixes and symbols used to denote various factors of 10.
Metric systems have the advantage that conversions of units involve only powers of 10. There are 100 centimeters in a meter, 1000 meters in a kilometer, and so on. In nonmetric systems, such as the system of U.S. customary units, the relationships are not as simple—there are 12 inches in a foot, 5280 feet in a mile, and so on. Another advantage of the metric system is that the same unit can be used over extremely large ranges of values simply by using an appropriate metric prefix. For example, distances in meters are suitable in construction, while distances in kilometers are appropriate for air travel, and the tiny measure of nanometers are convenient in optical design. With the metric system there is no need to invent new units for particular applications.
The term order of magnitude refers to the scale of a value expressed in the metric system. Each power of 1 0 in the metric system represents a different order of magnitude. For example, 10 1 , 10 2 , 10 3 , and so forth are all different orders of magnitude. All quantities that can be expressed as a product of a specific power of 10 are said to be of the same order of magnitude. For example, the number 800 can be written as 8×10 2 , and the number 450 can be written as 4.5×10 2 . Thus, the numbers 800 and 450 are of the same order of magnitude: 10 2 . Order of magnitude can be thought of as a ballpark estimate for the scale of a value. The diameter of an atom is on the order of 10 -9 m, while the diameter of the Sun is on the order of 10 9 m.
THE QUEST FOR MICROSCOPIC STANDARDS FOR BASIC UNITS
The fundamental units described in this chapter are those that produce the greatest accuracy and precision in measurement. There is a sense among physicists that, because there is an underlying microscopic substructure to matter, it would be most satisfying to base our standards of measurement on microscopic objects and fundamental physical phenomena such as the speed of light. A microscopic standard has been accomplished for the standard of time, which is based on the oscillations of the cesium atom.
The standard for length was once based on the wavelength of light (a small-scale length) emitted by a certain type of atom, but it has been supplanted by the more precise measurement of the speed of light. If it becomes possible to measure the mass of atoms or a particular arrangement of atoms such as a silicon sphere to greater precision than the kilogram standard, it may become possible to base mass measurements on the small scale. There are also possibilities that electrical phenomena on the small scale may someday allow us to base a unit of charge on the charge of electrons and protons, but at present current and charge are related to large-scale currents and forces between wires.
| Prefix | Symbol | Value | Examples (some are Approximate) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| exa | E | \(10^18\) | exameter Em \(10^{18}m\) | distance light travels in a century |
| peta | P | \(10^15\) | petasecond Ps \(10^{15} s\) | 30 million years |
| tera | T | \(10^12\) | terawatt TW \(10^{12} W\) | powerful laser output |
| giga | G | \(10^9\) | gigahertz GHz \(10^9 Hz\) | a microwave frequency |
| mega | M | \(10^6\) | megacurie MCi \(10^{6 }Ci\) | high radioactivity |
| kilo | k | \(10^3\) | kilometer km \(10^3 m\) | about 6/10 mile |
| hecto | h | \(10^2\) | hectoliter hL \(10^2 L\) | 26 gallons |
| deka | da | \(10^1\) | dekagram dag \(10^g\) | teaspoon of butter |
| — | — | \(10^0 (=1)\) | ||
| deci | d | \(10^{−1}\) | deciliter dL \(10^{−1} L\) | less than half a soda |
| centi | c | \(10^{−2}\) | centimeter cm \(10^{−2} m\) | fingertip thickness |
| milli | m | \(10^{−3}\) | millimeter mm \(10^{−3} m\) | flea at its shoulders |
| micro | µ | \(10^{−6}\) | micrometer µm \(10^{−6} m\) | detail in microscope |
| nano | n | \(10^{−9}\) | nanogram ng \(10^{−9} g\) | small speck of dust |
| pico | p | \(10^{−12}\) | picofarad pF \(10^{−12} F\) | small capacitor in radio |
| femto | f | \(10^{−15}\) | femtometer fm \(10^{−15} m\) | size of a proton |
| atto | a | \(10^{−18}\) | attosecond as \(10^{−18} s\) | time light crosses an atom |
Known Ranges of Length, Mass, and Time
The vastness of the universe and the breadth over which physics applies are illustrated by the wide range of examples of known lengths, masses, and times in Table \(\PageIndex{2}\). Examination of this table will give you some feeling for the range of possible topics and numerical values (Figures \(\PageIndex{5}\) and \(\PageIndex{6}\)).
Unit Conversion and Dimensional Analysis
It is often necessary to convert from one type of unit to another. For example, if you are reading a European cookbook, some quantities may be expressed in units of liters and you need to convert them to cups. Or, perhaps you are reading walking directions from one location to another and you are interested in how many miles you will be walking. In this case, you will need to convert units of feet to miles. Let us consider a simple example of how to convert units.
Let us say that we want to convert 80 meters (\(m\)) to kilometers (\(km\)).
- The first thing to do is to list the units that you have and the units that you want to convert to. In this case, we have units in meters and we want to convert to kilometers .
- Next, we need to determine a conversion factor relating meters to kilometers. A conversion factor is a ratio expressing how many of one unit are equal to another unit. For example, there are 12 inches in 1 foot, 100 centimeters in 1 meter, 60 seconds in 1 minute, and so on. In this case, we know that there are 1,000 meters in 1 kilometer.
- Now we can set up our unit conversion. We will write the units that we have and then multiply them by the conversion factor so that the units cancel out, as shown: \[80\,\cancel{m} \times \dfrac{1\,km}{1000\,\cancel{m}} =0.08\, km\] Note that the unwanted \(m\) unit cancels, leaving only the desired km unit. You can use this method to convert between any types of unit.
Click Appendix C for a more complete list of conversion factors.
| lengths in meters | Masses in kilograms (more precise values in parentheses) | Times in seconds (more precise values in parentheses) | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 −18 | Present experimental limit to smallest observable detail |
10
−30
|
Mass of an electron (9.11×10 −31 kg) |
10
−23
|
Time for light to cross a proton |
|
10
−15
|
Diameter of a proton |
10
−27
|
Mass of a hydrogen atom (1.67×10 −27 kg) |
10
−22
|
Mean life of an extremely unstable nucleus |
|
10
−14
|
Diameter of a uranium nucleus |
10
−15
|
Mass of a bacterium |
10
−15
|
Time for one oscillation of visible light |
|
10
−10
|
Diameter of a hydrogen atom |
10
−5
|
Mass of a mosquito |
10 −13 |
Time for one vibration of an atom in a solid |
|
10
−8
|
Thickness of membranes in cells of living organisms |
10
−2
|
Mass of a hummingbird |
10
−8
|
Time for one oscillation of an FM radio wave |
|
10
−6
|
Wavelength of visible light |
1
|
Mass of a liter of water (about a quart) |
10
−3
|
Duration of a nerve impulse |
|
10
−3
|
Size of a grain of sand |
10
2
|
Mass of a person |
1
|
Time for one heartbeat |
|
1
|
Height of a 4-year-old child |
10
3
|
Mass of a car |
10
5
|
One day (8.64×10 4 s) |
|
10
2
|
Length of a football field |
10
8
|
Mass of a large ship |
10
7
|
One year (y) (3.16×10 7 s) |
|
10
4
|
Greatest ocean depth |
10
12
|
Mass of a large iceberg |
10
9
|
About half the life expectancy of a human |
|
10
7
|
Diameter of the Earth |
10
15
|
Mass of the nucleus of a comet |
10
11
|
Recorded history |
|
10
11
|
Distance from the Earth to the Sun |
10
23
|
Mass of the Moon (7.35×10 22 kg) |
10
17
|
Age of the Earth |
|
10
16
|
Distance traveled by light in 1 year (a light year) |
10
25
|
Mass of the Earth (5.97×10 24 kg) |
10
18
|
Age of the universe |
|
10 21 |
Diameter of the Milky Way galaxy |
10
30
|
Mass of the Sun (1.99×10 30 kg) | ||
|
10
22
|
Distance from the Earth to the nearest large galaxy (Andromeda) |
10
42
|
Mass of the Milky Way galaxy (current upper limit) | ||
|
10
26
|
Distance from the Earth to the edges of the known universe |
10
53
|
Mass of the known universe (current upper limit) |
Example \(\PageIndex{1}\): Unit Conversions: A Short Drive Home
Suppose that you drive the 10.0 km from your university to home in 20.0 min. Calculate your average speed (a) in kilometers per hour (km/h) and (b) in meters per second (m/s). (Note: Average speed is distance traveled divided by time of travel.)
Strategy
First we calculate the average speed using the given units. Then we can get the average speed into the desired units by picking the correct conversion factor and multiplying by it. The correct conversion factor is the one that cancels the unwanted unit and leaves the desired unit in its place.
Solution for (a)
(1) Calculate average speed. Average speed is distance traveled divided by time of travel. (Take this definition as a given for now—average speed and other motion concepts will be covered in a later module.) In equation form,
\[\text{average speed} =\dfrac{distance}{time}. \nonumber\]
(2) Substitute the given values for distance and time.
\[ \begin{align*} \text{average speed} &=\dfrac{10.0\, km}{20.0\, min} \\[5pt] &=0.500 \dfrac{km}{ min}.\end{align*} \]
(3) Convert km/min to km/h: multiply by the conversion factor that will cancel minutes and leave hours. That conversion factor is 60 min/hr . Thus,
\[\begin{align*} \text{average speed} &=0.500 \dfrac{km}{ min}×\dfrac{60\, min}{1 \,h} \\[5pt] &=30.0 \dfrac{km}{ h} \end{align*} \]
Discussion for (a)
To check your answer, consider the following:
(1) Be sure that you have properly cancelled the units in the unit conversion. If you have written the unit conversion factor upside down, the units will not cancel properly in the equation. If you accidentally get the ratio upside down, then the units will not cancel; rather, they will give you the wrong units as follows:
\[\dfrac{km}{min}×\dfrac{1\, hr}{60\, min}=\dfrac{1}{60} \dfrac{km⋅hr}{ min^2}, \nonumber\]
which are obviously not the desired units of km/h.
(2) Check that the units of the final answer are the desired units. The problem asked us to solve for average speed in units of km/h and we have indeed obtained these units.
(3) Check the significant figures. Because each of the values given in the problem has three significant figures, the answer should also have three significant figures. The answer 30.0 km/hr does indeed have three significant figures, so this is appropriate. Note that the significant figures in the conversion factor are not relevant because an hour is defined to be 60 minutes, so the precision of the conversion factor is perfect.
(4) Next, check whether the answer is reasonable. Let us consider some information from the problem—if you travel 10 km in a third of an hour (20 min), you would travel three times that far in an hour. The answer does seem reasonable.
Solution for (b)
There are several ways to convert the average speed into meters per second.
(1) Start with the answer to (a) and convert km/h to m/s. Two conversion factors are needed—one to convert hours to seconds, and another to convert kilometers to meters.
(2) Multiplying by these yields
\[\begin{align*} \text{Average speed} &=30.0\dfrac{\bcancel{km}}{\cancel{h}}×\dfrac{1\,\cancel{h}}{3,600 \,s}×\dfrac{1,000\,m}{1\, \bcancel{km}} \\[5pt] &=8.33 \,m/s \end{align*}\]
Discussion for (b)
If we had started with 0.500 km/min, we would have needed different conversion factors, but the answer would have been the same: 8.33 m/s.
You may have noted that the answers in the worked example just covered were given to three digits. Why? When do you need to be concerned about the number of digits in something you calculate? Why not write down all the digits your calculator produces? The module Accuracy, Precision, and Significant Figures will help you answer these questions.
NONSTANDARD UNITS
While there are numerous types of units that we are all familiar with, there are others that are much more obscure. For example, a firkin is a unit of volume that was once used to measure beer. One firkin equals about 34 liters. To learn more about nonstandard units, use a dictionary or encyclopedia to research different “weights and measures.” Take note of any unusual units, such as a barleycorn, that are not listed in the text. Think about how the unit is defined and state its relationship to SI units.
Exercise \(\PageIndex{1}\)
Some hummingbirds beat their wings more than 50 times per second. A scientist is measuring the time it takes for a hummingbird to beat its wings once. Which fundamental unit should the scientist use to describe the measurement? Which factor of 10 is the scientist likely to use to describe the motion precisely? Identify the metric prefix that corresponds to this factor of 10.
- Answer
-
The scientist will measure the time between each movement using the fundamental unit of seconds. Because the wings beat so fast, the scientist will probably need to measure in milliseconds, or 10 −3 seconds. (50 beats per second corresponds to 20 milliseconds per beat.)
Exercise \(\PageIndex{2}\)
One cubic centimeter is equal to one milliliter. What does this tell you about the different units in the SI metric system?
- Answer
-
The fundamental unit of length (meter) is probably used to create the derived unit of volume (liter). The measure of a milliliter is dependent on the measure of a centimeter.
Summary
- Physical quantities are a characteristic or property of an object that can be measured or calculated from other measurements.
- Units are standards for expressing and comparing the measurement of physical quantities. All units can be expressed as combinations of four fundamental units.
- The four fundamental units we will use in this text are the meter (for length), the kilogram (for mass), the second (for time), and the ampere (for electric current). These units are part of the metric system, which uses powers of 10 to relate quantities over the vast ranges encountered in nature.
- The four fundamental units are abbreviated as follows: meter, m; kilogram, kg; second, s; and ampere, A. The metric system also uses a standard set of prefixes to denote each order of magnitude greater than or lesser than the fundamental unit itself.
- Unit conversions involve changing a value expressed in one type of unit to another type of unit. This is done by using conversion factors, which are ratios relating equal quantities of different units.
Glossary
- physical quantity
- a characteristic or property of an object that can be measured or calculated from other measurements
- units
- a standard used for expressing and comparing measurements
- SI units
- the international system of units that scientists in most countries have agreed to use; includes units such as meters, liters, and grams
- English units
- system of measurement used in the United States; includes units of measurement such as feet, gallons, and pounds
- fundamental units
- units that can only be expressed relative to the procedure used to measure them
- derived units
- units that can be calculated using algebraic combinations of the fundamental units
- second
- the SI unit for time, abbreviated (s)
- meter
- the SI unit for length, abbreviated (m)
- kilogram
- the SI unit for mass, abbreviated (kg)
- metric system
- a system in which values can be calculated in factors of 10
- order of magnitude
- refers to the size of a quantity as it relates to a power of 10
- conversion factor
- a ratio expressing how many of one unit are equal to another unit


4.8: EEO Complaints
- Explain the process for filing an EEO complaint
- Explain how EEO complaints are pursued
If an employee believes they were or are being discriminated against at work based on a protected category, the person can file a complaint with the EEOC or a state or local agency. [1] For example, in California, a discrimination claim can be filed either with the state’s administrative agency, the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) or the EEOC. Workplacefairness.org notes that the “California anti-discrimination statute covers some smaller employers not covered by federal law. Therefore, if your workplace has between 5 and 14 employees (or one or more employees for harassment claims), you should file with the DFEH.” [2] California law also addresses language discrimination—for example, “English-only” policies. In brief, “an employer cannot limit or prohibit employees from using any language in the workplace unless there is a business necessity for the restriction.” [3] This section discusses private-sector EEO complaints and enforcement. Federal job applicants and employees follow a different process, linked here: federal EEO complaint process .
Who Should File
If federal EEO law applies your workplace and you believe you were discriminated against at work because of your race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, gender identity, and sexual orientation), national origin, age (40 or older), disability or genetic information, you can file a charge of discrimination with the EEOC.
Filing a charge of discrimination involves submitting a signed statement asserting that an employer, union or labor organization engaged in employment discrimination. The claim serves as a request for the EEOC to take remedial action. Note that an individual, organization, or agency is allowed to file a charge on behalf of another person in order to protect that person’s identity. A person (or authorized representative) is required to file a Charge of Discrimination with the EEOC prior to filing a job discrimination lawsuit based on EEO laws with the exception of the Equal Pay Act. Under the Equal Pay Act, you are allowed to file a lawsuit and go directly to court.
How to File
To start the process, you can use the EEOC’s Public Portal (website) to submit an inquiry or schedule an “intake” interview. The Public Portal landing page also has a FAQ section and Knowledge Base and allows you to find a local office and track your case. The two most frequently accessed articles are linked below:
- What happens during an EEOC intake interview?
- If I submit an online inquiry, does that mean I filed a charge of discrimination?
The second step in the process is to participate in the interview process. The interview allows you to discuss your employment discrimination situation with an EEOC staff member and determine whether filing a charge of discrimination is the appropriate next step for you. The decision of whether to file or not is yours.
The third step in the process, filing a Charge of Discrimination, can be completed through the Public Portal site.
When to File
The general rule is that a charge needs to be filed within 180 calendar days from the day the discrimination took place. Note that this time frame includes weekends and holidays, except for the final day. This time frame is extended to 300 calendar days if a state or local agency enforces a law that prohibits employment discrimination on the same basis. However, in cases of age discrimination, the filing deadline is only extended to 300 days if there is a state law prohibiting age discrimination in employment and a state agency authorized to enforce that law.
If more than one discriminatory event took place, the deadline usually applies to each event. The one exception to this rule is when the charge is ongoing harassment. In that case, the deadline to file is within 180 or 300 days of the last incident. In conducting its investigation, the agency will consider all incidents of harassment, including those that occurred more than 180/300 days earlier.
If you are alleging a violation of the Equal Pay Act, the deadline for filing a charge or lawsuit under the EPA is two years from the day you received the last discriminatory paycheck. This timeframe is extended to three years in the case of willful discrimination. Note that if you have an Equal Pay Act claim, you may want to pursue remedy under both Title VII and the Equal Pay Act. The EEOC recommends talking to a field staff to discuss your options.
Key point: filing deadlines will generally not be extended to accommodate an alternative dispute resolution process—for example, following an internal or union grievance procedure, arbitration or mediation. These resolution processes may be pursued concurrently with an EEOC complaint filing. The EEOC is required to notify the employer that a charge has been filed against it.
If you have 60 days or less to file a timely charge, refer to the EEOC Public Portal for special instructions or contact the EEOC office closest to you.
Claim Assessment
The EEOC is required to accept all claims related to discrimination. If the EEOC finds that the laws it enforces are not applicable to a claim, that a claim was not filed in a timely manner or that it is unlikely to be able to establish that a violation occurred, the agency will close the investigation and notify the claimant.
Claim Notice
Within 10 days of a charge being filed, the EEOC will send the employer a notice of the charge.
Mediation
In some cases, the agency will ask both the claimant and employer to participate in mediation. In brief, the process involves a neutral mediator who assists the parties in resolving their employment disputes and reaching a voluntary, negotiated agreement. One of the upsides of mediation is that cases are generally resolved in less than three months—less than a third of the time it takes to reach a decision through investigation. For more perspective on mediation, visit the EEOC’s Mediation web page .
Investigation
If the charge is not sent to mediation, or if mediation doesn’t resolve the charge, the EEOC will generally ask the employer to provide a written response to the charge, referred to as the “Respondent’s Position Statement.” The EEOC may also ask the employer to answer questions about the claims in the charge. The claimant will be able to log in to the Public Portal and view the position statement. The claimant has 20 days to respond to the employers position statement.
How the investigation proceeds depends on the facts of the case and information required. For example, the EEOC may conduct interviews and gather documents at the employer site or interview witnesses and request documentation. If additional instances of discriminatory behavior take place during the investigation process, the charge can be “amended” to include those charges or an EEOC agent may recommend filing a new charge of discrimination. If new events are added to the original charge or a new charge is filed, the new or amended charge will be sent to the employer and the new events will be investigated along with the prior events.
EEOC Decision
Once the investigation has been completed—on average, a ten-month process—the claimant and employer are notified of the result. If the EEOC determines the law may have been violated, the agency will attempt to reach a voluntary settlement with the employer. Barring that, the case will be referred to EEOC’s legal staff (or, in some cases, the Department of Justice), to determine whether the agency should file a lawsuit.
Right to Sue
If the EEOC decides not to file suit, the agency will give the claimant a Notice of Right to Sue, allowing the claimant to pursue the case in court. If the charge was filed under Title VII or the ADA, the claimant must have a Notice of Right to Sue from EEOC before filing a lawsuit in federal court. Generally, the EEOC must be allowed 180 days to resolve a charge. However, in some cases, the EEOC will issue a Notice of Right to Sue in less than 180 days.
- " Filing a Charge of Discrimination. " U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Accessed September 14, 2019. ↵
- " Filing a Discrimination Claim – California ." Workplace Fairness. Accessed September 14, 2019. ↵
- Ibid. ↵
Contributors and Attributions
- Image: EEOC's Public Portal. Provided by : US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Located at : https://publicportal.eeoc.gov/Portal/Login.aspx . License : Public Domain: No Known Copyright