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Is it true that in the past wives used to live with in laws?



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amother
OP


 

Post Tue, Mar 24 2020, 8:02 am
Was it true in Jewish communities as well? How did the wife feel comfortable living at her in laws house? Where the couple able to be happy that way?
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FranticFrummie




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, Mar 24 2020, 8:13 am
Extremely common in Sephardic and Middle Eastern cultures, especially the first year. Often the wife was very young and didn't know how to cook. The MIL would teach her how to cook all of her son's favorite foods. That's why she never learned how to cook at home. (This was told to me by a Persian friend.)

The couple would have their own room, and the inlaws would pretend not to hear anything. The new couple would also be as quiet as possible.

Remember, in the shtetl people usually lived in one room all together, there were no internal walls, just a curtain that could be drawn open and shut between beds. The kids would all be sleeping right next to you, and maybe grandma and grandpa too. People make it work somehow.

The Western idea of privacy is a very particular culture, and to other people it's an unimaginable luxury.
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amother
Aubergine


 

Post Tue, Mar 24 2020, 8:15 am
My oldest son who is 24 was babysat by a Bucharian 22 year old mother of one (who was going to night classes to be a nurse practitioner).
I used to bring him to her apartment and meet her mother-in-law who was the lovliest lady.
Their were two bedrooms side by side. One was for the MIL and FIL and the other for the young couple.
They were the most wonderful family including the three year old girl who played with my son.

Also, a nurse at Ezra MC from Serbia told me how she and her husband and three sons won a lottery to immigrate to the USA. It was heartwrenching when they said good bye to her mother-in-law who was so attached to them. Afterwards the second son and his wife were obligate to move in to be with her.

It is hard for us to understand because we are very much in a whats in it for me culture, both men and women. Their mindset is settled from an early age that first comes a family unit.
A Bucharian man told me that family discord/unhappines in both men and women skyrocketed once they came in contact with Western
culture.
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amother
Green


 

Post Tue, Mar 24 2020, 8:18 am
The couple would live with his parents. It used to be standard for extended families to live together. I think it's still like this in middle eastern countries.
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DrMom




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, Mar 24 2020, 8:20 am
Very common in many countries around the world.
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amother
OP


 

Post Tue, Mar 24 2020, 11:01 am
How is the wife able to feel comfortable and happy in situations like this?
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octopus




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, Mar 24 2020, 11:05 am
Good thing we don't do that here. I get along with my mother in law but we have vastly different outlooks and religious levels. And I would be the one teaching her how to cook. Or she would be teaching me to buy takeout.
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amother
Azure


 

Post Tue, Mar 24 2020, 11:05 am
amother [ OP ] wrote:
How is the wife able to feel comfortable and happy in situations like this?


How is "the wife" able to feel comfortable and happy living alone with a man who is practically a stranger?

Answer - often she is not.
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Rappel




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, Mar 24 2020, 11:12 am
My grandma did, when my grandfather was released from service after WWII. His parents gave them and my uncle the only bedroom on the apartment (New York). At the same time, my great grandma apparently had no problem coming in at night "to check on the baby." They stayed for more than a year, but as soon as they were making enough, they moved out to their own place as fast as possible.
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amother
Maroon


 

Post Tue, Mar 24 2020, 11:18 am
Also in our community the tradition was that the mil would do the tahara for her mother in law
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amother
Maroon


 

Post Tue, Mar 24 2020, 11:22 am
We went in "vacation" with my mil one year ... We stayed in a family apt that didn't have a washing machine. One morning I saw she had picked up my underwear and dirty clothes from my floor while I was sleeping and hand washed it. (One of the dirty clothes was our "towel" from the night before) Surprised
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Maryann




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, Mar 24 2020, 11:25 am
So interesting but why wouldn’t they move in with the wife’s parents?
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amother
Firebrick


 

Post Tue, Mar 24 2020, 11:43 am
I believe this is where the minhag for a man not to marry a women with his mothers name comes from.
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turca




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, Mar 24 2020, 12:48 pm
I read rebbetzin kaniesvsky’s biography and she did live with her in laws for some period of time.
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banana123




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, Mar 24 2020, 12:56 pm
amother [ OP ] wrote:
How is the wife able to feel comfortable and happy in situations like this?

She had different expectations, different standards, and was a product of a culture vastly different than ours.

It's not as if people are happier today than they used to be (despite privacy and technology), or as if there aren't threads every day about women who wish they had more help from at least one side's parents.
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turca




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, Mar 24 2020, 1:01 pm
FranticFrummie wrote:
Extremely common in Sephardic and Middle Eastern cultures, especially the first year. Often the wife was very young and didn't know how to cook. The MIL would teach her how to cook all of her son's favorite foods. That's why she never learned how to cook at home. (This was told to me by a Persian friend.)

The couple would have their own room, and the inlaws would pretend not to hear anything. The new couple would also be as quiet as possible.

Remember, in the shtetl people usually lived in one room all together, there were no internal walls, just a curtain that could be drawn open and shut between beds. The kids would all be sleeping right next to you, and maybe grandma and grandpa too. People make it work somehow.

The Western idea of privacy is a very particular culture, and to other people it's an unimaginable luxury.

My grandparents came from the Ottoman Empire and it’s true over there as well. The houses were big, with a lot of ample rooms. They were not smashed together.
Today, usually, the mother in law hosts Shabbat sheva berachot in her house to welcome the new daughter in law to the family. This idea came up from previous times, as nowadays we don’t like together any longer.
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turca




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, Mar 24 2020, 1:06 pm
Maryann wrote:
So interesting but why wouldn’t they move in with the wife’s parents?

No, a girl left her parents’ house to go with the husband.
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zaq




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Mar 25 2020, 1:15 pm
amother [ OP ] wrote:
How is the wife able to feel comfortable and happy in situations like this?


Who says they all are? By the same token, not everyone is comfortable and happy marrying a boy or man she met once or five times, but many people do exactly this. Not everyone is comfortable or happy having a family of six or eight living in a home with just one bathroom, but many people do this. Not all men are comfortable or happy spending every Shabbos at their inlaws the first year or three of their marriage, but many people do this. And you know, a lot of people can't imagine marrying someone without first going to bed together to make sure they're physically compatible, but a lot of people do just that.

There is much to be said for expectations. If you expect to live with your inlaws and that's what everyone does, you accept the situation. If this is a foreign concept to you, it will be hard to deal with.
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amother
Tangerine


 

Post Wed, Mar 25 2020, 2:25 pm
OP I think about this subject a lot, like how on earth was there ever peace in those homes where a Mil and Dil did not get along?

So I came to the conclusion that most of the boys got married young and their mothers chose the girls more for themselves than their son as they probably didn't even know what they wanted at their young ages.
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