The mother-in-law myth expresses man’s repressed horror of motherhood and mortality

Evidence

The aura of respect around the Mother and the taboos that surround her repress the hostile disgust that mingles spontaneously with the carnal tenderness she inspires. However, lurking below the surface, the latent horror of motherhood survives. In particular, it is interesting that in France since the Middle Ages, a secondary myth has been forged, freely expressing this repugnance: that of the Mother-in-Law. From fabliau to vaudeville, there are no taboos on man’s ridicule of motherhood in general through his wife’s mother. He hates the idea that the woman he loves was conceived: the mother-in-law is the clear image of the decrepitude that she doomed her daughter to by giving her life, and her obesity and her wrinkles forecast the obesity and wrinkles that the future so sadly prefigures for the young bride; at her mother’s side she is no longer an individual but an example of a species; she is no longer the desired prey or the cherished companion, because her individual existence dissolves into universality. Her individuality is mockingly contested by generalities, her spirit’s autonomy by her being rooted in the past and in the flesh: this is the derision man objectifies as a grotesque character; but through the rancor of his laughter, he knows that the fate of his wife is the same for all human beings; it is his own. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 370

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Beauvoir’s core immanence/transcendence apparatus: the mother-in-law reduces the woman to species/body, dissolving her individuality into flesh and past — a concrete instance of immanence. — connects to: Pregnancy and breastfeeding trigger derogation of women when death and animality are salient — Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, The Worm at the Core: On the Role of…, 603; Incest taboos and menstruation prohibitions both express man’s fear of feminine fertility — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 339
• DEFINE: Illustrates how myth operates to sublimate repressed hostility, showing the mechanism of woman as Other through grotesque projection.

Broader Connections

• Pregnancy and breastfeeding trigger derogation of women when death and animality are salient #corroborates (0.82) — Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, The Worm at the Core, 603
• Incest taboos and menstruation prohibitions both express man’s fear of feminine fertility #corroborates (0.75) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 339