HUSBAND'S RELATIONS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXX, Issue 10212, 5 December 1893, Page 6

HUSBAND'S RELATIONS.

(Harper's Bazaar.) Probably there was never yet a well disposed bride who did not begin her married life with the firm intention of making her husband’s relations her own—that is, unless she knew them pretty intimately before the wedding. Equally probable is ib that within three yesra of the marriage she haa more than once declared to herself between set teeth, or in a burst of hot tears: “ There ia no use in trying I Relations in-law will be relations-in-Zaui always! They can’t boreal trua !” Naturally there are exceptions to this rule, and when one finds a family where the wife and her husband’s mother and sisters are engood terms, it speaks volumes for tho amiability and adaptability of both sides. But these instances sra rare enough to call forth admiring comments from the beholders, while the reverse is so commonly the case aa to cause little remark. Of couteo well bred people wash their soiled linen at home, and do not flaunt tboir family disagreements ia the face of the public, but the discoid is none the less felt because unacknowledged. In most homes tho son of tho house is so highly esteemed that his choice is considered a lucky girl. Seldom, however, does the affection bestowed upon the married son embrace the daughter-in-law, and place her on the same f ooting that he holds. Legally they rafjy bo one; in tho thought of his family they are two. Bo it remarked, in parenthesis, that this attitude is not assumed by the girl’s people towards her betrothed or her husband. Ee ia usually received with open arras, and made one of the family at once. The tio strengthens with time, until often there seems more probability that ho will forget his own people and his father’s house than that his wife will.

I do not mean to imply that the husband’s relatione receive his wife with overt animosity. On the contrary, she is often met cordially—nay, affectionately. But she is fortunate if she does not perceive, even at the outset, a lurking spirit of criticism in' her new kiu that becomes more apparent as familiarity increases. Her dress, her cookery, her housekeeping, the care aha takes.o£ her husbaad'c income and of his buttons, and above all, the training aho bestows upon her children—“ poor Dick’s children,” their paternal relatives call them—all are subjected to a closeness of scrutiny, a severity of judgment, that are intensely trying. Listen a moment to a few married women comparing notes on the subject:— /“My husband tells me I am never natural whei hia mother ie visiting me,” says a wife of six years’ standing. “ But I know that I and my affairs are under a microscope all the while she is in the bouse. Mother B brought up a family of seven, and she feels she knows just how I ought to manage everything. She is very devout, and I am not; she thinks it a crime to go to a theatre or to a dance, and I approve of both. Her children never dared hint that their souls were their own ia her presence; and my babies and I are, in her eyes, on shockingly familiar terms. So I put myself through a course of prunes aud prisms before she comen, and go, like Agag, ‘very delicately’ all the time she is in the house. If I don’t run up a flag sad sing a paean of praise when she goes, it is only out of consideration for my husband’s feelings.

“Mothers-in law are bad enough, but Bisters-in-law are worse,” says another of the band, “ One of mine came to visit me when I had been keeping house about three months. I had viaitsd her once, and wo had bean on very pleasant terms; but when she encored my house it was with every sense on tho alert lest some blunder of mine should escape her notice.’ She ordered my servants about; told me gently, buft firmly, of dust on the cornice moulding and rust on tho watarpipes; more than hinted at the extravagance of my table; and wound up by a lecture ou my conduct to my husband and his family.” “ AU watero-in-law are like chat,” asserts a third victim, gloomily. “ Mine used to worm herself into the confidence of my children sad learn ail their little naughtinesses, and then .take ms to task for neglecting the moral and religious training of the poor creatures to an extent that permitted of their committing the sins they had confessed to her.” The list of grievances might be continued ad lib., but let one more suffice. A young girl who had listened to some such experiences as those related above, and who had inwardly resolved that her relatives-in-law —when she had them—should not be such bugbears to her as they seemed to be to moat of her woman friends, began her betrothal with the firm intention of winning the affections of her promised husband’s parents. She begged for an invitation to visit them ia their home in a secluded Now England village, and there she stayed with them for two weeks, conforming herself, so far as in her lay, to all their tastes and habits, and endeavouring In every way to act a daughter’s part. Not once, then or afterwards, did either father or mother acknowledge, by word or deed, that the young lady who had stayed with them was anything more than a casual visitor, whose whim it was to be attentive to the desires and customs of her hosts. There was no word of affectionate welcome into the family, no intimation that the young guest was to be the wife of the son of the house. He, poor fellow, did all he could to make up for the coldness, and explained laboriously that it was his father’s and mother’s way—that they were undemonstrative even to their own children. But the lame and wellmeaning excuse could not obliterate in the girl’s-memory the coldness with which she had been received. Chilled, dis- ’ heartened, antagonised, she returned to her home thoroughly cured of any hope of ever being one with her husband’s relations.

The situation could be easily dismissed were it not for one complication. The wife’s new kin are those who have always been nearest and dearest to him who is now nearest and dearest to her. To him they are hia own, not relations-in-law. Except for this she could treat them with the ccol civility, the polite reserve, ehe would accord any other acquaintance to whom circumstances obliged her to show certain attentions, and could free herself from any suspicion of wounded feeling on account of their coldness, indifference or criticism. But this course is debarred her. For her husband’s sake she must simulate a cordiality she does not feel, must invite his relatives to the hou=.e whan she would infinitely prefer that they should stay away, must oven accompany her husband on visits to their homes under penalty o£ being accused of having alienated him from his family, must patiently—or at least with outward forbearance—endure their strictures, and (possibly) well meant interference, or else win the reputation of being ill-tempered, as well as incompetent. The love that lightens service must be hers in full force before she can achieve this.

In charity for the relationa-in-law let it be said that they merely look at matters from their own point of view. Their boh, their brother, is so dear to them that; they wish to bring hia wife np to their ideal of what she should be. But the effort to remodel the character of a grown woman is a hopeless and thankless task that can only being misery to subject and operators. The best attitude generally for the wife to adopt towards her new relations is that of those blesiied nom-sspectants who are never disappointed. tJnieis aha has previously been bound to thSm by the ties of friendship or affection, she need not hope that the new union will necessarily endear her to theta. Avoiding premature effusiveness, she should yet stand prepared to meet friendly advances half way, determined to make many sacrifices for her husband’s sake, to live at peace with hia family, and resolved that if there mast be coldness between her and them the blame shall not he laid at her door. Above all, she should never seek to alienate her husband from hia family because of any slight she may have received or fancied she received from them. Possibly her .course may not be appreciated by him 6v by them, but she will at leash heye the comfort of feeling that she hao done her best. i