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The Attitude Of Mother-in-law Towards Daughter-in-law As A Determinant Factor In Marital Stability
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CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
Marriage
is the legal relationship between a husband and a wife (Hornby 2007). It
is a process where a man and a woman agree to have a life contract
between each other mostly with the aim of procreation and self
development. Marriage is also an agreement between two families to join
their children together as husband and wife just as an African saying
that you don’t marry a person, you marry a family. The institutions of
marriage and family are inevitably intertwined. When two people choose
to get married, they are also choosing the integration of two families
(Lau, 2005).
Sociologically, what marriage is all about is the
integration of two families. After marriage, her family and his family
will likely come to be considered jointly as “our folksâ€. That is the
intended meaning of marriage. In practical terms, a brother-in-law is
treated as a brother, a sister-in-law is treated as a sister, and a
mother-in-law is treated as one’s own mother (Byng-Hall, 2008).
The
US Bureau of the Census (2006) defines the term family as “a group of
two persons or more (one of whom is the householder) related by birth,
marriage, or adoption, and residing together. This is because the
social relationships called family is such an important part of the
society. In fact no society has existed without some sort of social
arrangements Family relationships are never fixed; they change as the
self and the significance of other family members grow older, and as the
changing society influences their respective lives (Riley, 2008).
Family experts report that in reality the most difficult relationship is
the one between the mother-in-law and her daughter-in-law. Conflicts
between wives and their mothers-in-law do not just happen. They need an
arena, just as germs and viruses need an environment to breed (Lau,
2005). There must first be a common area in which both the wife and her
mother-in-law are in constant contact. If the wife and her mother-in-law
do not meet each other at all and each of them just lives her own life,
there would, in theory, be no problem at all between them, because
there is no contact. No contact, no conflict. It’s as simple as that. It
is like saying if there were no marriages, there would be no divorces
(Philips, 2005).
“When you play badminton or tennis, there is hardly
any chance of you crashing into your opponent unless you are playing
like a chimpanzee. This is because each of you has your own court. When
you play a game like squash, however, you have to be very careful not to
crash into your opponent, or smash his head with your racquet†Lau,
2005. The interaction between the wife and her mother-in-law is like
the game of squash, where there are lots of opportunities for both
players to be in contact with and crash into each other (Silverstein,
2012).
When intergenerational conflicts occur, it typically involves
the wife and her mother-in-law. In fact, in-law trouble has been
characterized as a “female problemâ€, perhaps because women have
traditionally shouldered the responsibility for maintaining kinship ties
(Marotz-Baden & Cowan, 2007). Fischer (2008) found that wives tend
to turn to their own mothers for help after giving birth. Yet they may
regard their mother-in-law’s concern over her new grandchild as
“interferenceâ€.
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ABSRACT - [ Total Page(s): 1 ]This had been an attempt to investigate the attitude of mother-in-law towards daughter-in-law as a determinant factor in marital stability, in carrying out this study,Questionnaire on the Attitude of Mother-in-law towards Daughters-in-law as a Determinant of Marital Stability (QAMDDMS) was developed and percentage, mean and chi-square at 0.05 level of significant were used to test the hypotheses. The results of the study show that the communication patterns of daughter-in-law from different cult ... Continue reading---
