Preface

This book is the end result of nineteen years of fuzzy determination to write a book on a subject dear to all our hearts — representations of mothers-in-law in popular culture. It has been asked what makes me qualified to write this book, an edited collection of scholarly works that I put together in the hope that the reader might gain as much enjoyment and enlightenment from it as I have. In the course of my studies I have been very privileged to have had fine teachers and exemplary supervisors who willingly passed on their knowledge and modeled excellent research skills. In real life, the mother-in-law is a central and all-important figure to the internal dynamics and relationships of every family, every culture, and therefore every community, and hence society in the world. It is quite probable that, being a delicate relationship inherently subject to the complexities of intrinsic and extrinsic stresses, strains, expectations, responsibilities, and emotions that naturally occur in life or that go with the territory, in the history of man-woman unions and family-type relationships, some mothers-in-law have seemed to be, or can be or are, a little difficult in some way or another.