Zhang Huan, lecturer at South-Central University for Nationalities.
First, the relationship between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law in rural areas is reversing.
During the Spring Festival, the author heard various stories about the relationship between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law in rural areas.
Let's take a look at a few real-world examples:
Case 1: There is a daughter-in-law in the village who sleeps lazily until 9 o'clock in the morning, and when she gets up and sees her in-laws eating breakfast first, she is angry and says, why don't you wait for her. Sometimes the mother-in-law cooks a meal, but the daughter-in-law doesn't eat it, and even directly throws it into the trash can, making the mother-in-law cry angrily.
Case 2: There is a mother-in-law in the village, one day she rode a four-wheeled electric car to the child's aunt's house, but she didn't tell her daughter-in-law, and when she came back, the daughter-in-law was furious and smashed a four-wheeled electric car of four or five thousand.
Case 3: There is a daughter-in-law in the village who does not want her mother-in-law to help take care of the children, and the mother-in-law sees that the mother-in-law is helping to take care of the children in other families, and she is afraid that the daughter-in-law will be unhappy, so she gives her daughter-in-law 3,000 yuan a month.
Case 4: The younger daughter-in-law gave birth to a child in the county people's hospital, and the eldest daughter-in-law did not let her mother-in-law go to the hospital to take care of her, saying, "You went, what should I do?" The mother-in-law had no choice but to entrust her sister to go to the county hospital to help take care of her.
Case 5: My cousin bought a house in the town for his son's marriage, and his daughter-in-law has been living in the town since she got married, the main reason is that she dislikes the poor decoration of the bungalow in her hometown, and she has never taken her children back to live in the village after a few years of marriage.
Case 6: The youngest daughter-in-law of my cousin's family asked for a bride price and bought a house in the county when she went on a blind date, for which my cousin owed a lot of debt. After getting married, the little daughter-in-law wanted her mother-in-law to go to the county to help take care of the children, but the eldest daughter-in-law also wanted her mother-in-law to help watch the children at home, but the mother-in-law was not a person on both sides, and finally she was so angry that she wanted to drink pesticides and said that she didn't want to live, and the little daughter-in-law was so angry that she poured the cooking oil into the kitchen and lit the fire, leaving the two children back to her parents' house for the New Year during the Spring Festival, and the young couple wanted to divorce.
For cases like the above, the evaluation of the elderly in rural areas is generally "that daughter-in-law!" The middle-aged person's evaluation is "arrogant and unreasonable". As a foreign daughter-in-law, the author is extremely shocked by the domineering behavior of a young daughter-in-law similar to the above-mentioned young daughter-in-law, and secondly, in the distorted mother-in-law relationship in the above case, I feel that the current rural mother-in-law is "really difficult to do".
Broadly speaking, there are three types of current rural mother-in-law and daughter-in-law relationships:
The first is the two-way running type. In this type of mother-in-law relationship, the mother-in-law is hardworking, diligent, and willing to work for the whole family, while the daughter-in-law is full of gratitude and even guilt for her mother-in-law's efforts, and works hard with her husband to work and live for the family development goals. It is undeniable that there must be intergenerational conflicts between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law of this type due to different concepts, and everyone will also have their own little temper, the real test of the relationship between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law is often after the daughter-in-law gives birth to a baby, but this type of mother-in-law and daughter-in-law have great goodwill towards each other, know how to tolerate each other, respect each other, love each other, and finally get along with each other through active running-in into a close family, and the whole family atmosphere is harmonious and beautiful. The author calls this type of "two-way mother-in-law and daughter-in-law relationship", which is a relatively ideal mother-in-law and daughter-in-law relationship.
The second is the mother-in-law control type. In this type of mother-in-law relationship, it is divided into two situations: one is that the mother-in-law often puts forward various role expectations for her daughter-in-law based on the traditional concept of reference, and behaves aggressively and aggressively in daily life, such as "marry you home, you will have a son, you will have to do laundry and cooking", etc., and this role expectation or this aggressive attitude may not be fully acceptable to all daughters-in-law, which may lead to many conceptual conflicts and contradictions between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law in daily life and parenting practice; Another situation is that the mother-in-law is too controlling over the entire family member and is used to arranging large and small things in the house. If the daughter-in-law finds it difficult to accept that the mother-in-law is too lenient in everything, there may be confrontation between the mother-in-law and the daughter-in-law, then the family will fall into a life mode of struggle, and the conflict between the mother-in-law and the daughter-in-law will be inevitable. For example, "my mother-in-law thinks I'm too thin and wants to eat more eggs, but I can't eat them, but she insists on asking me to eat them", "In our new home, my mother-in-law has to choose a four-piece bed set according to her preferences" and so on. The author calls this type of "mother-in-law-controlled mother-in-law relationship", which is an unbalanced mother-in-law relationship.
The third is the daughter-in-law's arrogant type. In this type of mother-in-law relationship, young daughters-in-law often have one of the following typical characteristics: first, a weak sense of family responsibility, such as not working, not doing housework, and the mother-in-law of the child; Second, the consumers of family resources spend lavishly and covet personal pleasures; Third, the mind is immature, and he says immature things, such as divorce without a word, doing unreliable things, such as engaging in online gambling and online loan pyramid schemes, etc., he can't suffer losses, can't stand grievances, has a short temper, and so on. In this type of mother-in-law and daughter-in-law relationship, "the mother-in-law is becoming more and more cautious, and the daughter-in-law wants to be spoiled and coaxed", which the author calls the "daughter-in-law domineering" mother-in-law and daughter-in-law relationship, which is a new unbalanced mother-in-law and daughter-in-law relationship.
Judging from the author's research and observation, a general feeling is that in rural society, there are not many "two-way running" mother-in-law and daughter-in-law relationships, because this requires mother-in-law and daughter-in-law to have high cultivation and wisdom in the process of getting along with mother-in-law and daughter-in-law; In the context of the imbalance of the sex ratio of more men than women, as the dominant position of women in marriage competition and marriage market becomes more and more prominent, the status of young daughters-in-law has been significantly improved, and in recent years, the relationship between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law of "mother-in-law control" has gradually decreased, but there are more and more mother-in-law relationships of "daughter-in-law arrogance". To a certain extent, it can even be said that young daughters-in-law are increasingly becoming the key variables affecting the stability of marriage and family harmony among young people in rural areas. As the villagers said, "In the past, the mother-in-law was in charge, but now the daughter-in-law is in charge." It can be seen that the current relationship between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law in rural areas is reversing, and the intergenerational relationship is becoming more and more unbalanced.
2. Why are there more and more unreasonable daughters-in-law?
The question is, why are there more and more arrogant and unreasonable daughters-in-law? The following attempts to analyze this problem from the following aspects.
First, the dominant position of women in the marriage market and family structure. After in-depth understanding, it was found that the general behavior logic of the current mother-in-law is: to make the daughter-in-law happy, in case the daughter-in-law is unhappy and divorced, then the whole family will not have a good life. Under the current structural dilemma of the imbalance of the gender ratio between men and women in rural areas, the increasing cost of marriage, and the increasing pressure of marriage competition, the logic of mother-in-law's behavior will inevitably become more and more cautious and cautious in order to maintain the marital stability of the offspring family. This is especially true in areas with heavy intergenerational responsibilities, where young daughters-in-law not only have a dominant position in the marriage market where the sex ratio is unbalanced and there are more men than women, but also in the family structure after marriage.
In the era of difficult marriage, farmers gradually realized that "it is not easy to marry a daughter-in-law", so families with sons often tend to arrange blind dates in advance, and many rural young people begin to marry on blind dates around the age of 20, which leads to the emergence of the phenomenon of "early marriage". For young couples, the savings accumulated before marriage are generally very small, so the cost of marriage needs to rely on the support of their parents. However, under the heavy responsibility and overprotection of parents, this also means that the offspring marry early at an immature age and become parents before they know how to take on family responsibilities. Although the parents emptied half of their life savings and even went into debt to help their children get married, the newlyweds did not pay any price or bear any pressure in a short period of time, but they sat on a brand-new car and a new house in the town, in addition to a sum of hundreds of thousands of yuan in cash, mainly including bride price, car gift, change of mouth fee, wine money, etc., generally into the pocket of the young daughter-in-law with the marriage, which actually not only means that the family resources are successfully transferred from the parents to the children, but also means that the young daughter-in-law has the power of the family economy. and then become the center of the power and status of the whole family.
In my research in the southern region, where intergenerational responsibilities are not so heavy, the author found that parents generally support the down payment required for their children to buy a house in the town, but the remaining mortgage requires the newlyweds to work hard to earn money to repay the debt, which also means that the young daughter-in-law also needs to bear the pressure of repaying the mortgage after marriage and take on some family responsibilities. However, the logic observed by the author in the Huang-Huai-Hai region is different: if the parents are married and take heavy debts, the children can live a chic but unsustainable pseudo-middle-class life after marriage with peace of mind and for granted, while the parents enter a new round of debt-repayment mode with high accumulation and low consumption, the newlyweds will not help their parents repay the mortgage left by the marriage and buy a house, and the sense of family responsibility is weak. It is precisely because of the immaturity of the mind brought about by early marriage, the weak sense of family responsibility of the offspring under the overprotection of parents, and the young daughter-in-law who holds the power of family economy and the right to speak, that once the conflict between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law or husband and wife occurs in the peasant family, the young daughter-in-law is often full of confidence and unscrupulous in the process of playing with family members, showing her independent personality, which in turn leads to the trivial problems in family life are easy to be magnified, and the emotional impulse is easy to become arrogant, unreasonable, and lack of inclusiveness.
Second, the society of village acquaintances has collapsed, and the binding force of local norms has weakened. In the past, the intergenerational responsibility of the parents was relatively limited, and the children separated when they got married, and they honed their ability to be independent and earn money to support the family in a long and arduous life very early, and the sense of family responsibility was strong. In the past, even if the offspring divorced, the constraints of the village's social norms and the educational persuasion under the authority of the parents were generally effective, and some impulsive divorces could be saved.
Nowadays, with the gradual disintegration of the village acquaintance society, the binding force of local norms and the weakening of the authority of the parents, the intervention of the parents is becoming more and more ineffective for the divorce of the offspring soon after marriage, and women will not be wronged to maintain an unsatisfactory marriage because of their children. Even some young people do not discuss divorce with their parents, and they don't even know about it, so they go home and get a divorce certificate to their parents. The old people found that "today's young people, just like in heaven, can't bear any grievances", they have become a family but have not started a business with the intergenerational support of their parents, and generally show psychological fragility, can't stand grievances, don't know how to take on family responsibilities, and young daughters-in-law often "divorce without a word".
It is precisely because of the collapse of the village acquaintance society that more and more young women do not think that divorce is a shameful event that requires huge psychological costs, so in the eyes of young daughters-in-law, divorce belongs to a free personality that controls their own destiny. However, in the era of difficult marriage, the parents almost do everything they can to help their children complete the task of marriage, and young women often "divorce without a word", sometimes they are often hasty and unreasonable, such as the two daughters-in-law in case 6 fighting for a mother-in-law, and if they do not help with the children, they will light a fire in the kitchen, divorce, etc. Under the uncertainty of marriage and family and the potential threat of "divorce without a word", the mother-in-law will inevitably form a cautious and cautious behavioral logic, and "coaxing the daughter-in-law to be happy" has become the key to the harmony of the peasant family.
Third, the impact of values brought by the Internet**, women pursue "living for themselves". In the eyes of local farmers, the young daughter-in-law is like a young grandmother, who does not work or do housework, and her mother-in-law takes care of the children and spends lavishly. In response to this, a middle-aged man said hatefully, "8 out of 10 are destroyed on mobile phones." In other words, the impact of the urbanized lifestyle and modernization concept brought by the Internet is reshaping the values of young women, that is, more and more women are pursuing "living for themselves". Specifically, it is manifested in the following aspects: First, the influence of the values spread by the Internet, such as the mother-in-law should serve herself before and after the saddle. For example, the following real case: after a young daughter-in-law gets married, she not only has to serve her mother-in-law before and after the saddle, but also controls her mother-in-law and is the master of the house. On the one hand, the parents-in-law go out early and return late to work, and the work outside the home is all covered, and the money earned is given to their young couples; On the other hand, in order to control the power of the family, he often loses his temper, says good things, buys things and other strategies, either loses his temper willfully, or pleases with strategies, all with the aim of maximizing the resources of his in-laws and maximizing his own power. The second is the change of young daughters-in-law's lifestyle and consumption concepts through online communication, which has become a consumer of family resources. For example, I often buy some things online that are "not famous" in my mother-in-law's opinion, such as the so-called lutein (a health care product) that is good for the eyes, stuffing the refrigerator with **, spending 2,000 yuan to buy a body shaper, pursuing the freedom of cherries and durians, ordering takeout at every turn, traveling in Internet celebrity check-in places, etc.
All in all, in the era of difficult marriage, women are increasingly in a position of relative advantage. It is worth reflecting on why these young daughters-in-law, who have received at least nine years of compulsory education, have similar unreasonable behaviors in the relationship between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, and whether there is a certain deviation in our basic education? The emancipation of women and the improvement of women's status is the progress of a society, but does this mean that young women can be domineering, willful, arrogant, and unreasonable? Does it mean that we can lose the bottom line of humanity and filial piety ethics, and then go to the other extreme? The author believes and hopes that there are not many unreasonable daughters-in-law presented in this article in reality, but these phenomena presented in the era of marriage difficulties have brought trouble to peasant families in some areas, and have also brought some adverse effects to the village society, destroying the social atmosphere, and are worthy of further in-depth study.