The Savannah morning news., 1904-03-27
THE M0THER-IN-LAW
PROBLEM.

The question of how to treat your
nother-in-law is admittedly one of the
most difficult problems in the world.
Sometimes a man treats her as he
would, sometimes as he has treated
her as he could, and occasionally he
treats her as he should, so it is inter-
esting to learn that this vexed point
in ethics and etiquette has just been
definitely settled by the Supreme Court
of Indiana which has decreed that a
mother-in-law is entitled to filial re-
spect and love from her daughters
husband.
This is a righteous decision-the words
of a second Daniel come to Judgment
but a good many women will have
difficulty in collecting their debt of
affection from their sons-in-law, for,
to the average man, the Biblical COM
mand to love your enemies and bless
those that despitefully use you will
seem a picnic compared to the legal
order to give the glad hand to your
mother-in-law She is the one person
on earth that a man feels he has a
right to suspicion without cause, and
dislike without reason, and II any
court thinks that it has the power TO
enjoin him from going about with the
air and expression of an Early Christ
mas martyr every time his mother
in-law comes on a visit, 1t has got
another guess coming to 1t.
just why a mother-in-law should be
persona non grata to a man, unless
he cherishes a secret grudge against
her for having provided him with
wife, has never been sufficiently eX-
planned. If he loves his wife, by every
law of gallantry he should be filled
with the deepest gratitude to her
mother as the real author of his do
mestic bliss. So far from doing this,
1t is indisputable that most men regard
the necessity of acquiring a mother
in-law as the chief drawback to ma
trimony, and that if all girls were
orphans most men would be benedicts.
Failing this ideal condition, for 1t is
little too much to ask even the most
unselfish mother to die to help along
her daughters matrimonial prospects,
men seek to hedge against possible
trouble by hating their mother-in-law
in advance, and the one unbreakable
oath that a bridegroom swears to him
self on his wedding day is to circum-
vent her Vaccinations and never let
nef nave q WOrQ 10 say ABOUT Ine
management of his house.
Being thus primed and ready for her,
he views every act with a dark and
sinister apprehension gathered from
the motherin-law jokes in the comic
papers. He resents her every sugges-
ton and flares up at every word of ad-
vice. and the only time when his wife's
mother is really welcome in a mans
house is when she arrived to take charge
nj a
straighten out the kinks in house
hold wrestling, helplessly and hope
lessly with the first baby. Then, in
deed, she appears not as a usurping
tyrant but as a guardian angel with
soothing syrup in her hand.
OF course, it is very sad that men
should be thus prejudiced against
mothers-in-law. More than that, it is
unjust One can bring a hundred SEN
tlmental arguments to prove that a
mother-in-law is entitled to a mans
tenderest affections and should he
cherished as if she were his own
mother, but, as a matter of fact while
the mother-in-law is far from being
the terror she is painted, she does not
orten do much towards endearing her
self TO her daughters husband. She
means to do what is right. but there
are rev things in this world more full
OF trouble for other people than a good
conscientious woman in the high pur-
suit of her duty
First and foremost she considers 1t
her sacred mission to protect her child.
ana there is nothing more characteris-
tleaily feminine than the diametrical-
ly opposite views that woman holds
concerning the proper code of martial
conduct for her son and her son-in-
law. She believes that her son should
De pampered autocrat in his house
and that his wife should peel and mare
and inch and scrineh economizing SO
that he will not have to work so hard
and that she should be contents to
spend her life burning incense at his
feet. On the other hand tshe thinks
that her son-in-law should be a meek
domestic slave whose business in life
is to work himself to death providing
her daughter with luXuries. If any
man treated her daughter the way she
thinks her son ought to treat his wife.
she would be the advance agent for
separation and alimony and would say:
Come back to mother. you poor per-
secuted angel"
But while love blinds woman to
the shortcomings of her own children.
1t gives her spectacles with which to
see the faults of her son-in-law, and as
a general thing she feels il her duty
TO call his attention to them. Heaven
alone knows why a woman should
think that her son-in-law Carried to
get two women to take charge of his
manners and morals. One critic on
the hearth is more than enough, new
ertheless, ninety-nine women out of
a hundred act as If they thought that
they had perfect right to force their
own beruffied and lace trimmed the
cries of virtue on a man il he happens
to marry their daughter. If they are
white ribboners there must be no more
cakes and ale for him, if they are
church goers he must attend early serv-
ice, If they cNsapprove of the races or
theater, he must take his pleasure on
the sly, or else submit to a continuous
lecture performance. Hence the
strained relations in so many families,
and which makes the general family
gathering a kind of armed peace con-
ference, where everybody mas a ham,
mer up his sleeve and is waiting for
chance to use it.
The prevailing lack of entente cor
diaie between mothers-in-law and sons
in-law Is to be deplored on many ac-
count. Practically, because it is one
of the chief causes that leads to di-
vorce, statistics showing that last year
in the petitions for divorce filed by men
the interference of the mother law,
and the troubles stirred up by her was
the reason assigned oftener than any