Indira Chakravorty comments : thanks mamata for a meaningful at the sametime lighthearted-enough-to-be-entertaining article. enjoyed it a lot. it is a keepsake for me as i hope to be a mother in law sometime in the future if/when my son obliges! :-)
I enjoyed reading this article, its presented very lightly. Which is very good, because quite often this subject is discussed on heavy notes which makes it look like to be serious matter. WHICH IT MIGHT NOT BE.
Thanks !!!!
Shehla Siddiqui comments : Mamata, I enjoyed readig your article in fact i like all your articles and posts on SAWF forum.
Even though you have kept a lighthearted tone to it, the message conveyed is meaningful and adaptable! Though men of our society have an important role to play, its not only upto the women folks :)
Charanjit Kaur comments : Mamata, Loved the way you dealt with a very *real* issue in a lighthearted tone so that it's at once, humourous and serious! I'll pass this on to some relatives who are both daughters and mothers-in-law as I think your words of wisdom can help them see the bigger picture:)
I really liked your article. I will file it and read it repeatedly and share with my friends and relatives who can benefit from it :) Thanks.
NC comments : We people marry within family even then our own aunts start behaving as typical mother in laws! The problem can be compounded if husband does not have enough courage to call spade a spade!! I loose my peace of mind more than anything else and that affects my relation with my husband and that affects my two little boys. I wish we all could love each other without conditions and live like a happy family. On the other hand things are a lot better these days than what my mom went through! I am already preparing myself to set an example to be an ideal M-I-L may be 25 years more to go :)
Amrita comments : Thanks for this insightful article, Mamata...you've addressed a lot of the same issues that my married friends and I face on a daily basis. Since most of us are raised in the West, we can easily see things in this compromising manner whereas most of our MILs are raised in the old country and set in their old ways & expectations. One would need to have a forward thinking MIL for this article to have an affect, which most of us SA women are not fortunate enough to have.
Indira Chakravorty comments : since i have read this article, a lot of thoughts have been coming into my mind about the issue. many times i have opened the forum, about to write on it, then stopped, thinking if i should comment seriously enough to put a damper on the lightheartedness of the article, or not. :-)
after a great deal of dilly dally, i decided to take this chance and bore you all a bit--please forgive me and ignore this post if you are not interested.
this article reminds me of a class we offered the safeplace [called center for battered women at the time] on culture sensitivity--mamata misra, kalpana sutaria and myself. we were teaching the cbw volunteers about south asian especially indian women--the dynamics of our socities, and the typical ways the patriarchal system runs there.
i read some books for reference before the class, and one of them impressed me a lot--the rebellious home-makers, by indira mahindra. i will not quote her as this has been quite a long time since i have read the book, but some of the points she elaborated have made a lasting impression in my mind and i would like to reiterate some of it in my own words, in reference to the context of the article in discussion.
in a typical traditional indian/south asian society, women have a very low status in the family hierarchy. since birth she hears that she is lesser than her brother, and is not really a family member--will go on to her 'real' family as soon as she gets married--and getting married is the ultimate goal for her in her life. [she does give and receive love in her family before she gets married, though she is considered an 'outsider'.] the moment she gets married and moves into her husband's home she knows that this is her 'real' family, and she should forget about her birth family from that instant. but in return she gets the treatment of a slave--even the smallest child in the family has a better position than hers. the only exalted position she would have is if she becomes the mother of a male child. [i have heard a proverb in bengali many times when i was young which means, the bahu has become the mother of a son, so please don't get after her anymore!] her position as the daughter in law improves a little, and in the future, when she is a mother in law herself, she can wield power to another human being and give back everything she got herself earlier!
there is also a flip side of this issue--many times we have seen the mother in law, especially if she does not possess a very strong personality, being ill-treated by the daughter in law [along with the son many times, or surreptitiously]. this happens because the women of south asia are born into a system where since childhood they learn that as daughters in law [or as women] they are supposed to act in certain ways to please their husband's family [or else!]--they do not really have to feel the love in their hearts, just play-acting as a submissive slave would be alright. that play-acting does not come from the heart, and might be resented. the only power a young bahu in a traditional south asian home has is in bed, and she does take advantage of that if she can. she is trained to be not forthright and open about her wants, only thing she has learnt through generations is how to be crafty and get things she wants in round-about ways, using sexual powers over her husband being the most effective one. the south asian women, both mothers in law and daughters in law, have to manipulate their way to get what they want.
to discuss this in the clearest of ways, a lot more words are needed, at least for myself. so i beg forgiveness for being 'blunt' sometimes--it was mainly for brevity's sake [ and my inability to write well! :-)]
Thank you very much for your kind comments. Readers like you are a writer's joy. Your appreciation is my encouragement.
Indira, thank you for your elaboration of the issue and clearly showing why and how women use manipulation as a tool to achieve power and how we women unconsciously support and propagate patriarchy causing more harm to our own kind.
Thank you Amrita for pointing out the fact that many MILs of today do not have the advantage of eduction or exposure to the outside world and are unlikely to change their ways. Perhaps we, the future MILs can gain more from our own understanding. If we can catch ourselves when we see ourselves using manipulation, and ask why, if we can laugh at ourselves for our own follys, the world would be a better place. After all it is we women who create this world and shape it one child at a time.
I shall end this on a MIL note. Some of my friends and relatives have become new MILs and recently when I visited them each of them praised her DIL. Then one day my mother-in-law exclaimed, "How things have changed! Everyone is praisng her DIL!" Her daughter who is a new MIL took that as a compliment, saying "Mom, that's because we are much better MILs than your generation was!" May be there is hope.
I feel prety overwhelmed with the article. It is written in a light hearted manner which makes it so readable ( I laughed a lot while reading it) but it is also insightful all the same. To me it seemed as if I was living life all over again. I can understand and appreciate my own mother-in-law much better now. This could not have come at a better time- I am going to be a mother-in-law in 20 days time. And fortunately, like you suggest, I have already stuck a friendship with my daughter-in-law to be. I am going to forward this link to all my friends who I am sure will benefit from the article. Thanks you so much!
