[jQuery] Passing a jquery object as a function parameter

[ferdjuan]

I had a script that was acting unexpectedly because of a function
parameter. I was trying to pass a jquery object through a function to
attach some events. I was wondering if someone could tell me why this
didn't fly:

function doStuff(theform) {
    theform.show();
}

doStuff($('myForm'));

The fix was to pass the id as a string:

function doStuff(theform) {
    $(theform).show();
}

doStuff('myForm');

Is there a reason why I couldn't pass the object directly through?
Thanks

Thanks