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英语阅读：为什么婆媳关系总是紧张
It is usually husbands who crack the
jokes about
difficult, interfering
mothers-in-law.
But their wives
probably have more reason to complain.
A study of hundreds of families has
found that mothers are
far more likely
to feud with a daughter-in-law than a
son-in-law.
Nearly two-
thirds of daughters-in-law accused their
husband's mother of 'unreasonably
jealous maternal love'.
A similar
proportion of mothers-in-law complained they had
been isolated and excluded by a female
addition to the
family.
Dr
Terri Apter, a psychologist at Newnham College,
Cambridge, has spent 20 years
researching the type of
battles seen in
the film Monster-in-Law, starring Jane
Fonda and Jennifer Lopez.
She interviewed 49 couples and 156
other people, and
drew on past studies
to compile her new book, What Do
You
Want From Me?
She said: 'As they
struggle to achieve the same position in
the family as primary woman, each tries
to establish or
protect their status,
each feels threatened by the other.
'Mother-in-law and daughter-in-law
conflict often emerges
from an
expectation that each is criticizing or
undermining
the other. But this mutual
unease may have less to do with
actual
attitudes and far more to do with persistent
female
norms that few of us manage to
shake off completely.'
These 'norms'
include the fact that wives are still usually in
charge of the cooking, cleaning and
children's welfare -
opening them up to
criticism from an older woman who has
done it all before.
And many
women cannot break the habits of childhood,
when they ousted rivals from playground
cliques using
subtle and indirect
insults over extended periods of time.
Dr Apter said one woman she spoke to
began receiving
messages from her
mother-in-law-to-be two months before
the wedding.
Jenny, 26, from
North London, said one warned: 'My son
thinks about me every day, every minute
of the day, every
second of every
minute of the day.' Other letters were
critical, intrusive or seeking pity.
Another interviewee, mother-in-law
Annie, 64, from
Yorkshire, said: 'My
daughter-in-law is so cold towards me.