Terror of the Sasu

As if beginning a King Kong movie, there comes as large a force to be reckoned with as Godzilla… the Sasu, or Marathi for mother-in-law. Just saying the word itself sends shivers down even my own spine and I am brought back to her long and painful role in most Indian families. By mother-in-law, I mean the mother of the husband, and by role, I mean her relationship with her son and even worse, with the daughter-in-law. It is the most interesting family dynamic I have learned about since my arrival in August.

And as much as this story is about the mother-in-law, it is also about the Indian bride, who is not fully accepted in her husband’s home until she produces a male child. When he is born, she is so grateful that she indulges her son to excess (the simple dichotomy between bearing a male versus female child is evident when you see newly-born sons cuddled up with their mother while newly-born daughters are left alone on the other side of the room, distant from the bitter mother). As the boy grows up, he remains close to the mother and distant from the father and a very close-knit relationship forms between mother and son. When the son is married, he is now given to another woman, and the mother often becomes very jealous and envious of this new woman in her son’s life. Since the wife often moves in with her husband and his family, tension is instantly created between the wife and mother-in-law, with the sasu giving the wife hell for everything. The situation deteriorates so much that the son is placed in the middle of the fight, forced to choose sides on many arguments. To maintain the loyalty of his mother who has spoiled him and nurtured him his whole life, he often sides with her, estranging even more his wife who has left her family and now feels alone in her husband’s house. She is often desperate to gain the acceptance of this new family, especially the mother-in-law. And what better way than to bear a son?… so the cycle continues.

In my diploma training course, a 26-year-old Indian wife living in Chennai told me she was desperately trying to move out of her house and find a job away from her husband. They had been married for three years after being in love for eight, and had a two year old daughter. They were an atypical couple because not only had they married out of love (rather than arranged) but he was Hindu and she was Christian. “The love was very strong,” she said. Everything changed after two years of marriage when the husband’s father died, leaving his mother alone. She became ravenous, lonely and manipulative, making unheard-of requests of her son and blaming the wife for the misfortunes of her family. The sasu forced them to change their house to meet Hindu customs, including prayers to Hindu Gods and practices like not entering the kitchen during the period of menstruation. She began to control her son, often taking much of the money that he made and turning him into an argumentative husband. Everything changed and eventually she got so tired that she moved out of the house and in with her parents. Still madly in love with the man she met before his father died, she is confused and angry, hoping that he will soon return to his senses and ask for her back.

Another example occurred while making early-morning hospital rounds with Dr. Wout. A child was admitted the night before with abdomen discomfort, high fever, and trouble peeing. After a physical exam, we realized he had phimosis, a problem where the foreskin at the end of the penis does not retract, thus causing the inability to pass urine and accounting for much of the pain. Wout told the mother that he would simply need a circumcision to correct the problem yet the mother looked terrified and on the verge of tears. The surgery was scheduled but it hit the fan when a woman came storming into the room, yelled at the mother, made a huge racket and started screaming at her and put the mother again in tears. We asked what was happening and the woman began to scream in Marathi at Wout. We came to understand that she was the mother-in-law and didn’t want her grandson getting surgery. Wout re-explained the case to the mother-in-law and the dire need for surgery to remove the pain. With a very doubtful look in the eyes of the mother-in-law, and tears in the mother’s, they both agreed. When we returned to the ward three hours later, the child was gone and her family had packed up and left with no return.

In educated, uneducated, rural, urban, rich, and poor families, this same trend is seen again and again. A wife who has to put up with a difficult mother-in-law becomes an angry sasu herself. For the hospital and for CRHP, it means that the sasu is an essential piece to the puzzle. If we are to provide care or an operation to the child or wife, we must also recognize the influence held by the mother-in-law and include her in that decision. If the Village Health Worker wants the mother to join the women’s group, then a conversation has to be held with the sasu before she is allowed to join. Due to that influence, a major goal of these women’s groups has been to educate mothers to not be so difficult as their sasu was, and most have taken pledges to be different, and they have. They hope to set an example for all to follow.