In some cases, indeed in many cases, the presence of an “outsider”
adds to the unhappiness of the wife and divides her still more from her
husband. It is the presence of the mother-in-law.
She, poor soul, has had a terrible time, and no one until now has said a
good word for her. The red-nosed comedian of the music-hall has used her
for his most gross vulgarities, sure that whenever he mentions her name
he will raise guffaws from the gallery, and evoke shrieks of ill-natured
merriment from young women in the pit. In the pantomimes the man dressed
up as a woman indulges in long monologues upon his mother-in-law as
the source of all domestic unhappiness, as the origin of all quarrels
between husbands and wives, as the greatest nuisance in modern life, and
so long as he patters about the mother-in-law the audience enjoys itself
vastly.
It is idle to pretend that the mother-in-law is a blessing in a small
household. I am bound to admit that the success of the rednosed comedian
who uses her as his text is due to the truth which lies hidden beneath
his absurdity. He raises roars of laughter because the people who make
up his audience realize that he is giving a touch of humor to something
which is a grim tragedy, and according to the psychology of humor
this is irresistibly comic, just as the most primitive and
laughter-compelling jokes deal with corpses, and funerals, and death
made ridiculous. They have suffered from their own mothers-in-law, those
elderly women who sit in the corner with watchful eyes upon the young
wives, those critics of their sons’ marriages, those eavesdroppers of
the first quarrel, and of all the quarrels that follow the first, those
oracles of unwelcome wisdom, whose advice about household affairs,
about the way of dealing with the domestic servants, with constant
references to _their_ young days, are a daily exasperation to young
married women.
All that is painfully true. In many cases the mother-in-law becomes so
terrible an incubus in small households that domestic servants leave
with unfailing regularity before their month is “up,” husbands make a
habit of being late at the office, and wives are seriously tempted to
take to drink.
But what of the mother-in-law herself? Is _she_ to be envied? Did she
willingly become a mother-in-law? Alas, her tragedy is as great as that
of the young wife upon whose nerves she gets so badly, as great as that
of the young husband who finds his home-life insufferable because of her
presence.
For the mother-in-law is a prisoner of fate. She is the unwanted
guest. She is dependent upon the charity of those who find her a daily
nuisance. During the days of her own married life she devoted herself
to her husband and children, stinted and scraped for them, moulded
them according to her ideals of righteousness, exacted obedience to
her motherly commands, and was sure of their love. Then, one day, death
knocked at the door, and brought black horses into the street. After
that day, when her man was taken from her, she became dependent upon her
eldest son, but did not yet feel the slavery of the dependence.
For he paid the debt of gratitude gratefully, and kept up the little
home.
But one day she noticed that he did not come home so early, and that
when he came home he was absent-minded. He fell into the habit of
spending his evenings out, and his mother wondered, and was anxious. He
was not so careful about her comforts, and she was hurt. Then one day
he came home and said, “Mother, I am going to get married,” and she
knew that her happiness was at an end. For she knew, with a mother’s
intuition, that the love which had been in her boy’s heart for her must
now be shared with another woman, and that instead of having the first
place in his life, she would have the second place.
For a little while her jealousy is like that of a woman robbed of her
lover. She hides it, and hides her hate for that girl whose simpering
smile, whose prettiness, whose coy behavior, light fires in her son’s
eyes, and set his pulse beating, and make him forgetful of his mother.
Then the marriage takes place and the mother who has dreaded the day
knows that it is her funeral. For she is like a queen whose prerogatives
and privileges have been taken away by the death of the king, and by
the accession of a new queen. Her place is taken from her. Her home is
broken up. She is moved, with the furniture, into the new home, put into
the second-best bedroom, and arranged to suit the convenience of the new
household in which another woman is mistress.
She knows already that she has begun to be a nuisance, and it is like a
sharp dagger in her heart. She knows that the young wife is as jealous
of her as she is of the young wife, because her son cannot break himself
of the habit of obedience, cannot give up that respect for his mother’s
principles and advice and wisdom, which is part of the very fibre of his
being, because in any domestic crisis the son turns more readily to the
mother than to the young woman who is a newcomer in his life, and in any
domestic quarrel he takes the mother’s part rather than the wife’s.
It is the law of nature. It cannot be altered, but it is the cause of
heartburning and squalid little tragedies.
The mother-in-law, in the corner of the sitting-room, watches the drama
of the married life, and with more experience of life, because of her
years, sees the young wife do foolish things, watches her blundering
experiments in the great adventure of marriage, is vigilant of her
failures in housekeeping, and in the management of her husband. She
cannot be quite tongue-tied. She cannot refrain from criticism, advice,
rebuke. Between the mother-in-law and the daughter-in-law there is a
daily warfare of pinpricks, a feud that grows bitter with the years.
But the mother-in-law is helpless. She cannot escape from the lamentable
situation. She must always remain a hindrance, because she needs a roof
over her head, and there is no other roof, and she is dependent for her
daily bread upon the son who is faithful to her, though he is irritable,
moody and sharp of speech, because of the fretfulness of his wife.
This is the eternal tragedy of the mother-in-law, which is turned into
a jest by the red-nosed comedian to get the laughter from “the gods.”
It is also a tragedy to the daughter-in-law, who could shriek aloud
sometimes when the presence of the elderly woman becomes intolerable.
Many things are becoming intolerable to the young wife. Her nerves are
out of order. Sometimes she feels “queer.” She cannot explain how queer
she feels, even to herself. She says bitter things to her husband, and
then hates herself for doing so. She has a great yearning for his love,
but is very cold when he is in a tender mood. She cannot understand her
own moods. She only knows that she is beginning to get frightened when
she thinks of the long vista of years before her. She cannot go on like
this always. She cannot go on like this very long. She is getting rather
hysterical. She startles her husband by laughing in a queer shrill way
when he expresses some serious opinions, or gives vent to some of his
conventional philosophy, about women, and the duties of married life,
and the abomination of the Suffragettes. But he does not see her tears.
He does not see her one day, when suddenly, after she has been reading
a Mudie’s novel, page after page, without understanding one word, tears
well up into her eyes, and fall upon the pages, until she bends her head
down and puts her hands up to her face, and sobs as though all her heart
had turned to tears.