The Daughter-in-law Vs the Mother-in-law – The Son or the Husband Figure

Omila Thounaojam *

A manembok-mamau drama scene from the film "Dharmagi mingda Imagidamak"

The word "Relationship" is a complicated term. More so if we realize that no man lives in an isolated island. We live by being in association with people. The more we feel connected to our societal fabrics, the more we feel normal.

It so happens that there is an invisible thread of human bonding that runs through all our lives. If we have a closer look, we will instantly witness that we need a sense of being in a relationship to understand the stages of life.

Whether one is at the right track in the pathway of life can be easily determined by looking at our contentment level in life. The human dealings that we are involved in each day decide our level of achievement in terms of our handling of relationships.

If one takes up the particular facet of a very common relationship that exists between a daughter-in-law and a mother-in-law in today's context, then one would say that this one is almost a case of total failure. Of all the relationships in existence today between different individuals, particularly in this sector, many will see that there are lots of gaps and pauses in its inside part.

Look at a mother. She is kind, giving, and forgiving most of the time. Now have a good glance over a daughter, who is also a beauteous creation of God. Both of them are different manifestations of the grandeur feminine sides. Each day, relationship building process grows and the number of mother-in-law and daughter-in-law too increases.

Despite providing here a statistical count of how many of them exist in our state today, it could be said that each house has at least one of them. The interesting face of this truth is this that the moment a mother turns into a mother-in-law, she becomes a jealous woman in need of all-the-round attention from her son.

Similarly the day a daughter adorns the role of a wife or a daughter-in-law, she converts herself into a lesser understanding and mean woman. The situation takes such a serious turn when the son/husband figure is seen as a symbolic rope on which the tug of war between the two women takes place.

Both the women are good but as soon as they assume their societal roles, they change. Today it has become a fashion to break a house into different compartments in order to handle the rising rate of maddening tension and friction between the two. The mother-in-law fails to see her daughter-in-law as a daughter and the same also goes for the daughter-in-law.

Man in this scenario appears all innocent all because he stays out. Most of the time, he acts like a neutral pole by not participating in the rising debate between the two very important women figures in his life. The truth is he is responsible for the whole mess. He could be the one who can be balancing the whole chaotic mess.

When women fight for men out of love and attention, instead of coming forward to look after the ones who care so much for him to go up to the level of turning themselves into the worst, the men create myths about and around women. While every household has a story about jealous women and moments, men never cease to weave larger than life pictures of women as seductresses.

History is the witness here. From biblical writings to great Greek mythologies, the figure of a woman like an Eve or a Helen is constructed in order to meet with their urgent creative need to write a great epic like tale. Tragedies of high classic values are woven around beautiful women and their powerful role in bringing about a holocaust.

Men fall because of enchanting women. It's funny actually when not many have pointed out the missing link that's there. Is it like all those men were so innocent and out of their reasoning capacity that they were bent, rounded and twisted by framing scheming minds of women.

Were they so helpless that they fall all the time and war took place for just one woman? Why has been the powerful seducing figure of a Satan in the guise of a snake gone when actually he was the one who convinced the innocent Eve to eat the forbidden fruit?

Today when families are breaking up and nuclear family is the high ranking trend available in our societal store, still women are the evil sources of break-ups and ties. While the truth is men have become fragile and helpless to deal with the situation in a practical way, the blaming of women for everything continues.

May be this is the new trend in which a man has almost failed to understand the need of his parents and woman. As such the fall of a joint family structure is ensured most of the time in the name of women as the cause for the unfaithful turn of events.