The Shrinking Universe
The other in-law
VIJAY NAGASWAMI
|
The saas-bahu conflict is a familiar story but what of the other side: the relationship between the son-in-law and his parents-in-law.
|
Sometimes, involvement ends up becoming over-involvement without our even realising it.
Photo: B. Jothi Ramalingam
What next?: The girl’s parents now play a more direct role when it comes to their son-in-law.
It is a well established norm in our country today, supported by the popularity of the theme in soap operas in most Indian languages, that daughters-in-law have a hard time dealing with their mothers-in-law and vice-versa. But, as a recent e-mail from a hapless young male reader recently asked me, what of the other in-law relationships — those between sons-in-law and their parents-in-law?
Traditional scene
Conventional wisdom has it, and this has been borne out in practice over the decades, that Indian men have always had a good time of it when it came to dealing with their parents-in-law. In order to ensure that their daughter was well-taken care of by the husband and his family, the parents of the bride have always gone out of the way and bent over backwards to please every whim of their sons-in-law and have treated them like princes and even kings. The only exception to this rule has been in those instances where the brides’ parents are extremely wealthy or powerful or have converted their sons-in-law to ghar jamaais or veetu maapilais. In this scenario, sons-in-law have been subtly expected to tow the line, and more often than not, they have uncomplainingly done just this, recognising that it has been in their best interests to do so.
In recent times, metropolitan India has seen the emergence of a new phenomenon. As has been discussed ad nauseum in the national press, as well as in this column, the economic empowerment of women has seen new demands being placed on contemporary marriages, and has served, in some situations at least, to lend an element of parity to the marital partnership. As an interesting by-product, the economic independence of their daughters seems to have empowered parents of the bride to participate more actively in their daughters’ marriages in sharp contrast to the hitherto hands-off approach they were compelled to adopt. As a result, it is not uncommon nowadays to see the girl’s parents playing a more directive role when it comes to their son-in-law. They no longer shy away from offering inputs to their new son-in-law on issues such as dealing with his financial investments, asking for a raise at work, padding his resume a little more, the location and budget for their first apartment, protecting his wife from his parents, when to have children and even the kind of contraception to use (I have come across one mother-in-law telling her embarrassed son-in-law that he would find ribbed condoms perfectly satisfactory, when her daughter complained to her that her husband was refusing to use condoms as a contraceptive method and was insisting that she go on the pill).
Intervention or interference?
Today’s son-in-law finds himself in not too dissimilar a position that yesterday’s daughter-in-law was in. The cynic would have us believe that it’s pay-back time and the tables are slowly turning. However, since I am not a cynic, I am not prepared to accept the sauce-for-the-gander approach to this issue.
Today’s sons-in-law should not have to pay for the collective sins of their forefathers, particularly when there’s enough evidence that urban men are becoming increasingly sensitive to the needs of their spouses and are no longer as patriarchal in mind-set as were their fathers. I believe the reasons for this phenomenon lie slightly deeper below the surface.
By and large, many of us born in post-Independence urban India have tended to approach the job of parenting much more consciously and ‘hands-on’ than did our parents. This is not to say that older generations of parents didn’t care about their children. Of course they did. But their general approach to parenting tended to be laid back and driven by social norms than by consciously acquired knowledge and understanding. As a result, the tendency for the daughter-in-law being given a hard time had more to do with patriarchal norms in operation at the time than to a conscious need on the parents’ part. Post-independence parents, however, by virtue of being more ‘aware’, resort to a more involved kind of approach. Sometimes, involvement ends up becoming over-involvement without our even realising it. Therefore, today’s parents tend to invest much more in their children’s lives and choices, and generally find it harder to let go of them even when they have grown old enough to sever the umbilical cord. This applies not just to their daughters but to their sons as well. By virtue of being more aware, the tendency to intervene in their children’s lives is much higher. However, we also need to be aware that the line between intervention and interference is very thin.
Admirable advice
I have no doubt that whatever inputs parents offer their married children comes from a good place — a concerned place. Unfortunately, when it violates the natural boundary that exists between parents and adult children, then, however well-intended, intervention becomes interference. And this is what we need to guard against. We would be well advised to pay serious heed to the admirable Roger Waters’ advice: “Leave them kids alone”. They will make their mistakes. They will stumble and fall flat on their faces. But they will pick themselves up, heal and get on with their lives. The last thing they need is for us to be another brick in the wall between them and their spouses.
The writer is a psychiatrist and author of The 24x7 Marriage. E-mail: vijay.nagaswami@gmail.com
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Magazine
