Dominant Daughters-in-Law and Submissive Mothers-in-Law? Cooperation and Conflict in South India

Abstract

The stereotype of mother-in-law and daughter-in-law relations in India is that of a dominating mother-in-law and submissive daughter-in-law. However, residents of low-income settlements in Chennai (formerly called Madras) argue that daughters-in-law no longer submit to the demands and wishes of their mothers-in-law as they do in rural Tamil Nadu, a South Indian state of which Chennai is the capital. Rather than being culturally determined, relations between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law are shaped by shifting physical, social and economic dependencies and expectations of dependence in the future. In many families social and economic developments are redefining relations between older and younger generations. Where such developments have had, or are expected to have, a deleterious effect on older women's capacity to support themselves or secure the support of their family, mothers-in-law are adopting a variety of strategies towards their daughters-in-law including that of appeasement.Amongst Indians and the general public in the West the predominant image of mother-in-law and daughter-in-law relations in Indian joint families is that of the dominant mother-in-law and submissive daughter-in-law. However, many residents of low-income settlements in Chennai (formerly called Madras) complain that in the city daughters-in-law do not submit to the demands and wishes of their mothers-in-law as they do in rural Tamil Nadu, a South Indian state of which Chennai is the capital.Younger women in these settlements, wishing to stress the inversion of the `typical' order of the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law relationship, state `here it is the daughter-in-law who lies on the bed ordering her mother-in-law around'. In practice many women in these low-income households are wary of their daughters-in-law and anxious not to antagonise them. Such claims and relations not only contradict the

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Revisiting the patriarchal bargain: The intergenerational power dynamics of household money management in rural Nepal

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