ABSTRACT
Just as relations between husbands and wives assumed new importance with the advent of economic reform, so too did intergenerational relations between women in the household. As noted in earlier chapters, 1xi MSi discourses on women’s emancipation regarding economic development and the cultured family focused on women’s responsibility for sustaining the household and maintaining harmony among its members, thereby holding women chiefly accountable for family progress and behavior. The relationship between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law was seen as particularly important in managing tensions that could threaten the order and stability of families and was a major component of the state’s initiatives to build “cultured families.” Family tensions could be acute in co-residing households, where mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law handled most of the work in the family. Unsurprisingly, therefore, the state’s new focus on the family specifically targeted this often fractious relationship. Starting in the early 1990s, the statecontrolled media started to portray conflicts (mâu thukn) between mothersin-law and daughters-in-law as one of the prime reasons for the lack of harmony in the family.1
