ABSTRACT
The Indian family typically includes parents, any married sons, their wives/the bahus, and their families and unmarried children, who often still live under the same roof and share daily activities. This chapter aims to unravel the intricacies of the system to discover what opportunities for advocacy are available to disrupt the bahu's disempowerment. An anonymous writer on the story-sharing website AkkarBakkar highlights the juxtaposition of the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, Indian mothers-in-law fail to understand that the bahu is not a villain[sic], here to take away her son. The complexity of the family structure and its hierarchy make it challenging to assess who has the greatest influence on the experience of the bahu. The fathers-in-law were reported to have a huge influence on the household, especially when bahus were treated favorably or equally. Even the bahu's birth family plays a role in maintaining the traditional expectations of a bahu, even when they did not necessarily raise their daughters to perform traditionally.
