A Man Marries Two Women...!

It appears from the black statistical table that the mother-in-law is the second enemy of marital happiness, coming immediately after the adulteress.

Since the earliest times, authors and novelists have taken up the theme of "the mother-in-law, maker of tragedy" in everything they write or stage. The subject concerns all classes of society and all the different civilizations. That is because it presents one of the principal "situations" of humanity: the birth of one human cell from another, and then its being torn away from it in the end. In the language of the theater they say it is the conflict between motherly love and conjugal love.

The Casting of the Roles

Here the matter is knotted mechanically among three characters, as in the loftier plays: the mother-in-law, the daughter, and the wife (or daughter-in-law); or the mother-in-law, the daughter, and the son-in-law. Here the mother-in-law is the principal character, and the son-in-law or the daughter-in-law are the opposing figures. Usually the son or the girl is the positive victim; on one of them the drama turns, and for his sake the separation takes place. There remains—though not always—what the novelists call a "utility": that is, the father-in-law. If he is among the inhabitants of this world, his presence is of great use; but the tragedy is endless when the mother-in-law is a widow.

One must first look this harsh truth in the face: the tragedy of parting is inevitable. The only room for choice lies between an operation without tears and another with struggle and tears. It begins on the day after the wedding; if that day passes in peace, the happy ending is assured and the tragedy averted. But if you put everything off to the next day, the pain grows and the wound scars over all the more, with the addition of thousands of small daily trifles—and there lies the danger, all the danger.

An American psychologist named J. Bacal spoke recently about family problems and said: "The best mother-in-law is the one whose existence one ignores"—and he is entirely right in saying so.

When we look at this problem in the light of truth, it appears at once—despite everything the songs say—that she is not a comic figure but a pitiable one; that she is the one from whom the limb is severed in the case of separation, and that she needs special care, which concerns, in principle, the son-in-law or the daughter-in-law.

If You Are the Son-in-Law

The important thing is to begin well, and at once. The ideal plan is to realize that the time of diagnosis is the time of the engagement, and that the day of special care is the wedding day. The time of the operation is the first months of married life; and the time of convalescence is the time of restoring relations to a footing of friendship. After that, if everything passes in peace, understanding will prevail between the two divided generations, the new and the old. Each of these periods has its own way of behaving. And the first counsel:

Do not scorn advice. You are not the first man to marry. The mother-in-law problem is not your private case but a general one, and you must learn a great deal about it.

During the engagement, you must not confine your eye to your fiancée alone. In truth you are marrying two women: your fiancée and her mother. One to keep, and the other to lose (at least temporarily). It is essential to devote much of your attention to your future mother-in-law. As for your fiancée, you will have time, after she becomes your wife, to make up for whatever attention you failed to give her. But for your fiancée's mother, love, in her eyes, ends on the day of your wedding. The future relations between you and your mother-in-law will be just as you prepared them during the days of the engagement. You will not become "the pampered son of the house"; even if that title comes to you quickly, it is not true. You are the thief of the daughter. You will show yourself as such sooner or later. Try to feel with the other side, and to win approval for your theft not from the tips of the lips but from the depths of the heart.

Your fiancée's mother must be, after the marriage and after the parting from her, the best friend of your new home and the grandmother of your children. It is most necessary to know this and to prepare what is needed for the future.

Two principal counsels:

1 — No special habits:

Do not think you can skirt certain matters and find a middle solution—such as going, for example, to take breakfast every day at your mother-in-law's. That morning meal brings tragedy with it, and becomes the vexing dream of the week. The break must be clear and final, like the weaning of a child.

2 — Do not surrender to conveniences:

The mother-in-law offers herself to smooth your path through life—by fitting out the flat, for instance, or the trousseau, or the kitchen. Do not accept. Choose the hard life, but the independent one.

Whatever happens, the young couple must remain united and form a single front. In the first year of marriage the girl listens with all her will to what her young husband wants; let that year, then, be at the same time the year of the final weaning as well.

If You Are the Daughter-in-Law:

Most of the advice addressed to the son-in-law suits the daughter-in-law too. She must first understand her mother-in-law's tragedy. The best mothers are often the worst mothers-in-law. That is natural and ordinary: the more attached a woman is to her child, the more she feels the difference when that child is torn from her. The true tragedy of the mother-in-law is that she suddenly finds herself "out of work." Her work until now was motherhood, and the aim of her life was her child. And suddenly there she is, without a trade and without an aim.

She tries to prolong her role, just as she strives to cling to it—and that is the tragedy. She must at all events be kept occupied and accustomed to the new situation. A new work and a new role must be found for her. If she is not a widow, and the father-in-law is alive, he must here appear on the stage. The young couple must ally themselves with the father-in-law to make him understand that it is for him to give his wife's life a new meaning.

The daughter-in-law must show psychological skill. The problem of daughter-in-law and mother-in-law often takes the form of a conflict between two generations. The weapon employed is "the hint." It is never a reckoning to one's face, but a jab into the air: "In my day, sheets used to last longer!" The dueling must not be allowed to drag on in this field. The daughter-in-law must not regard the woman standing before her as an old crone, but must take her as a friend: a woman, and above all a mother, keeps the age of her engagement, and it is necessary for the daughter-in-law to return, from time to time, to what people admired twenty or thirty years ago. She should read the books they used to read, think of the actors famous in her time, of the plays known then, and of the songs current in that age. Nothing disarms a mother-in-law like being asked whether she heard such-and-such a singer in her day, and how greatly she admired him, for example.

If you are the daughter-in-law, think as though you were a mother-in-law—of that woman walking toward old age, who does not know how to defend herself against that bodily envy. Do not try to spread out your marital happiness before her. Show yourself as the best friend of her son. And repeat in her hearing a part of what you owe her: her son. Credit to her the qualities you admire in your young husband. But, as with the son-in-law, hold always to absolute independence. You will be the stronger if you were less familiar with her during the period of the engagement.

Finally, try to manage matters, and leave no room for your husband to present his mother with a silken head-covering on the very day he gives you a coat of costly fur. And remember that you will become a mother-in-law yourself one day...

If You Are the Mother-in-Law:

This is the most wearying role to play. And you have every excuse. But there is no excuse sufficient to let you fail in managing your child's affairs.

The first rule: do not try to bring back the past. Your will would not be in the right. Your child no longer belongs to her to whom he once belonged; so let things go as they are, even if his present state is a wretched one. For were you to interfere, his wretchedness would be doubled: the pain would go on, and in addition he would be ashamed of his pain.

Look at this problem from its true face: and be assured that you must pass through it. There is nothing strange in that. Your mother passed through it, and your daughter will pass through it likewise. It is a terrible moment, but you must bear it.

When your last son marries, whether you like it or not, your role as a mother is finished, and you must learn anew, and live a new life with a new center around which all things turn. Make haste, and change your surroundings. As a French doctor once said: it is the mother-in-law who ought to go on the honeymoon trip, not the bride and groom. For it is you, after all, who will be beginning a new life...