An interesting take. A very engaging read. A friend of mine loved your post so much that he sent it to me privately.
Another thing which I´d like to point out here based on my observation is that it´s kind of an unwritten rule that a woman who wasn´t given any attention, love, affection and importance in her life will always turn out to be a very bad kind of mother-in-law. I base this on the theory the fact that girls in our culture, especially in the generations before us, weren´t given any value at home. Their birth itself was often treated as a burden as throughout their childhood and adult age they were hardly given any importance in the family and their brothers would always get the preferential treatment.
Then they get married and then.... Well, the same continues to apply. Her husband only realises that he has a wife after 22 PM as otherwise throughout the day the man hardly talks to her. Again, no attention and value for her. Then the late night "meetings" show a result as she gets pregnant. Here´s the key moment now: if she gives birth to a son then her value increases somewhat. The bigger moment though arrives when that son gains the age of maturity. He´s then the first person ever in her life who gives her importance, someone who appreciates her existence. She finally has someone who says, "Dare say a word against my mother and I´ll cut you into pieces!" Wow! This sounds lovely, no? I don´t think I need to explain here the value that mothers hold in our society, despite the fact that women in general hold zero value at the same time. Anyway, the son then becomes like an object to her, a property. All goes well till he gets married. The jealousy and competition starts here. The son from this point can´t express any love or affection towards his wife. He can´t even ask her in front of his mother as to how she´s doing. The mother feels challenged. She feels as if she´s losing her son, the only person in the entire galaxy who appreciated her very existence. A typical desi mother-in-law emerges from this competition and the rest is history. Here in the West you don´t see this attitude of mothers-in-law, and the primary reason behind this is the fact that women are appreciated, acknowledged and loved in this culture. They hold value as daughters and then also for their life partners, as a result of which she doesn´t get overly attached with her son and neither entertains too many expectations of him. All those things never happen over here. Here, a woman may have been with 10 partners in life but she´ll never settle with the one for whom she only matters around at midnight. So yeah, just a theory on my part.
*Note: my post doesn´t apply to all women. Also, I hope that no element of disrespect or offence towards women is deduced from it. Please try to understand the whole context before drawing such unfair conclusion. Here´s to all the women in the world without whom our life is incomplete. Respect.*
