Hsiang-Ming Kung
Department of Social Psychology Shih Hsin University
This research tries to sort out the reasons why mothers- and their daughters-in-law fight against each other, and how they face and deal with conflicts and tensions. In addition, another focus is to find out what role husbands of daughters-in-law play when they are confronted with the in-law problems. The data are based on in-depth interviews with mothers, and their daughters-in-law coming from 18 middle-class families located in Northern Taiwan area. Interviews with husbands of the daughters-in-law are also included.
Results show that conflicts occur when mothers- and daughters-in-law share different values in everyday lives due to generation gap and different family background. However, relationship between mothers- and daughters-in-law are not inevitably problematic. To ease the tension and possible conflicts depends not only on the endeavor from both women, but also from the critical key person—husbands of daughters-in-law.
Keywords: in-law relationships, conflict between mothers- and daughters-in-law, intergenerational interaction, marital adjustment