Copyright © 2025 Michael A. Brown
‘For this reason a man will leave
his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one
flesh.’
(Gen. 2:24)
Of the relationships
within a nuclear family, the husband/wife relationship is (hopefully!) the most
committed and stable. The sibling
relationships between children are often characterised by intermittent rivalry. The father/son and mother/daughter
relationships have the potential to be strong mentoring relationships as the
children grow up. The relationship
between father and daughter is often the sweetest one, but the mother/son
relationship is invariably the most possessive one.
Mothers often find it
very hard to release and let go of their son when he grows up and gets
married. The underlying reasons for this
soulish umbilical cord are at least three-fold:
·
the natural maternal cross-gender fondness for her son that she
carried for nine months in her womb and nurtured as he grew up (much as the
father has a special fondness for his daughter).
·
her insecurity and fear of how she will cope in old age after
her husband passes away and leaves her widowed (assuming he dies first, as is
often the case). She will naturally rely
on her son to look after her.
·
her fear of releasing him into the care of a younger woman who
does not know as much about life, caring for a husband and bringing up children
as she herself does.
The soulish umbilical
cord which attaches mother to son is all too often still unbroken after he gets
married. The mother has not let go
of him, and, in her heart, she still desires to possess him for
herself.
This dynamic then all
too often manifests itself in petty female rivalry, snide or even malicious
attitudes and comments directed at her son’s young wife, in inappropriate
intrusiveness into their relationship, in controlling behaviour, and in subtle
manipulation of her son to try to keep him near herself. The younger woman picks these signals up, and
very soon out of frustration she starts to get irritated with the
situation. She often ends up in tears
behind the scenes, feeling powerless to do anything about it, and she may well
start to reciprocate similar attitudes towards her mother-in-law, and also to
openly argue with both her husband and his mother.
Many men get
surprised by this phenomenon if it kicks off around them after they get
married. The tension and strain that
this causes in relationships is not something they were expecting. It takes them very much by surprise. Unfortunately, a man may not pick up on a lot
of what is going on because he is probably not as intuitive as his wife and
mother, so he may not be aware of many of the female-to-female mind games which
go on, and also much of it goes on behind his back anyway so he neither sees
nor hears these signals. He also may not
discern or understand his mother’s manipulative behaviour towards himself.
So the man can end up
unwittingly as ‘piggy in the middle’ or in a tug-o’-war between two women who
both love him, but who do not get on well with each other. His wife pulls him one way, but his mother
often seems to be pulling him the other way.
He is in a quandary and doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t want to upset either of these two
women whom he loves by appearing to take sides either way and therefore seem
unsupportive to the other, so he often ends up doing nothing except trying
vainly to keep the peace and putting out fires every time one flares up. If this unhealthy dynamic is not dealt with
properly, it can begin to drive the couple apart because of the intermittent
hurt and arguments which ensue. A
toxic relationship with the in-laws is a major cause of separation among
married couples. What God has
joined together, the man’s mother can very successfully separate! (cf. Matt.
19:6). A similar kind of dynamic can
also sometimes happen with the man’s sisters, the bride’s sisters-in-law, as
their brother moves on from them into married life. The root of the issue is this: who is
it that possesses the man after he is married? This dynamic has been portrayed very well in
films such as Monster-in-law and Easy Virtue.
I have often thought
that, as well as having the father accompany his bride daughter down the aisle
at the start of her wedding ceremony, to ‘give her away’ and commit her into
the care of this young man she has chosen, it would be a good idea if the
mother of the bridegroom were to do the same thing with her son.[1] So that she too would have to make a symbolic
statement in public that she is giving away and releasing her son into the care
of the young woman that he has chosen.
This would then perhaps help the mother to face the issue of being
willing to break the soulish umbilical cord which still binds her to her son.[2]
Getting married
involves the introduction of a new set of relational dynamics and priorities
into the life of a family, on both sides.
This demands therefore that there be a willingness to adjust and adapt,
as everyone slowly gets used to these new dynamics. Life and all-round relationships for everyone
cannot simply carry on as they were before.
However, some may not want to accept the changes involved…[3]
The intention in
marriage is that a new social unit can be created out of two previous ones: the
two sets of parents give their son/daughter to be married together, and this
union creates a new unique social unit. This
new social unit needs to be honoured by the previous two. It is created by the son bringing ‘in’ that
which ‘is from outside.’ Therefore, in
order that this new social unit might be created, the previous two both have to
undergo a rupture and their long-held status quo is disrupted (implying
that there may well be some relational tensions, at least initially)
The Hebrew word azab
translated as ‘leave’ in Genesis 2:24 has the various meanings of ‘to loosen,’ ‘to
permit,’ and so ‘to relinquish.’ It
implies being released from a previous grasp or dependency in order that a
commitment can be made to someone else.
However, in no way does it suggest forsaking with the intention to
neglect, and neither does it imply that a permanent separation will be
created. The Hebrew word dabaq
translated as ‘cleave’ (AV) or ‘be united with’ (NIV) means ‘to cling to,’ ‘to
adhere,’ ‘to be joined together,’ ‘to stick to,’ and hence ‘to be glued
together.’ Figuratively, it implies ‘following
close after,’ or ‘catching by pursuit.’
Therefore, the union
of the young couple creating a new social unit takes place in the context of
what is presupposed and expected to be ongoing relationships with both of their
biological families. So the disruption
that takes place on both sides needs to be followed by a period of adjustment
as everyone concerned slowly gets used to their new in-law relationships, and
the new couple, as a couple, establish themselves and nestle into the wider web
of relationships. If this new
social unit formed from the union of the young couple is to grow, mature and be
happy, it needs to be honoured by everyone in their parents’ families on both
sides.
When we look
carefully at Genesis 2:24, we can see that there are four people mentioned in
this verse: the father and mother, their son (the man), and his wife. The creation of in-law relationships is
therefore inherent to this verse.
However, of these four people, three of them (the father and the mother,
and the wife) are relatively passive.
Only one of the four is described as being active: the son/man. He leaves his father and mother (an active
verb) and he cleaves or glues himself to his wife (again an active verb). His actions are therefore two-fold,
consisting of ‘leaving’ and ‘cleaving.’
In order to avoid (or put to an end to) the kind of rivalry described
above that sometimes develops between a mother-in-law and her daughter-in-law,
it is neither the mother-in-law nor the daughter-in-law that has to deal with
it. It is the man that has to deal
with it. He has to be active: to
‘leave,’ on the one hand, and to ‘cleave’ on the other, as above.
The kind of
relationship that the man enters into with his wife is a covenant union
relationship in which both of them have given themselves utterly and completely
to one another. Their lives become
completely integrated together as one, and so his relationship with his wife
becomes the number one and most important relationship that he will ever have
in his life. This goes much, much deeper
than the soulish umbilical cord which attaches a mother to her son. However deep this bond of the soulish umbilical
cord may be, being ‘glued’ in covenant is of a completely different order. The man and his mother are never glued
together. In fact, that was the kind of
relationship she had with his father, but she can never have that with her son!
The man needs to
recognise all this and to be proactive (and fearless!) in making sure that he
adjusts to the new relational dynamics in his life. He has to ‘leave,’ so he therefore needs to
ensure that, in whatever way is best appropriate, his mother knows and is
assured that he still loves her, that he will always be there for her, and that
he will not abandon her in her old age, but also that she understands
that she needs to respect and honour his choice in the girl that he has
married, and that he is now ‘cleaving’ to his wife because he loves her and
lives in covenant union with her, and that his mother therefore needs to
release him into his wife’s hands and care because he now belongs primarily to
her. The soulish umbilical cord
has to be cut.
If the man’s mother
really does want the best for her son and his marriage and family, then she
will accept this and honour their marriage, and she can learn to adjust to a
new way of relating to her son and his wife.
She will keep an appropriate distance from them and let them live and
develop their own life together, and not be intrusive. All can then be well and good between them,
and the man’s wife will be at peace within herself that she is not going to
lose her husband. However, if the mother, or the man’s sisters, does/do not
want to accept and honour this and are unwilling to adjust, then the man may
well be forced to put an appropriate distance into his relationship with his
mother and/or sisters in order that he and his wife can then live in peace and
develop a healthy relationship together.
And if this proves to be the case, then, for as long as he does not take
this step, or is not willing to take it, he and his wife will continue to
suffer frustration, irritation, lack of peace, and arguments for as long as the
situation continues, perhaps even putting their marriage at risk. The man’s wife has to be first in his
life, together with their children when these are born, and his mother and
sisters have to take second place.
Being a mother and
being a mother-in-law are two different and distinct roles. Assuming for the sake of argument that the
mother’s son is the eldest of her children, that he is also the first of them
to get married and that he gets married when he is around 25 years old, then,
on the day he gets married, his mother will by then have had 25 years’ worth of
accumulated experience in growing and maturing in her role as a mother. She may well have become a very good, loving
and successful mother, and she can rightly be proud of the young man that her
son has become. However, she has zero
personal experience of being a mother-in-law.
None at all. The
mother-in-law/daughter-in-law relationship is a completely new one for both of
them, and it begins on the day when the son gets married. So it presents a definite learning curve
which they must both learn to navigate with care and mutual respect while they
are adjusting to this new dynamic. The
mother-in-law in particular must embrace this learning curve both for her own sake
and that of the newly married couple.
She will never cease to be the mother of her son, but at the same time
she cannot afford to become a rival to his wife. She must begin to learn from scratch how to
be a mother-in-law. This demands
humility, and the willingness to adjust and to grow into her new role. The ideal, of course, is for her to become
just as good, just as loving and just as successful a mother-in-law to her
daughter-in-law as she has been a mother to her son for all those years.
[1] A
father normally has no problem with his son ‘leaving’ and getting married. In fact, he wants his son to grow up, mature
and to become his own man, and he knows that this will involve him getting
married at some point.
[2] It is
interesting that Genesis 2:24 does not mention the wife’s mother, i.e. the man’s
mother-in-law, but she too needs to release her daughter. Her daughter also needs to ‘leave’ her
parents and ‘cleave’ to her husband when she gets married. She cannot afford to make the kind of potential
mistakes that are described here of the son’s mother. The man/mother-in-law relationship will
become problematic, if manipulation or interference occur on her part.
[3] The set
of relationships between father/mother/son in one family consists of three
relationships. The bringing in of a
daughter-in-law/bride creates an additional three new relationships, and if we
also include the father/mother of the bride, then we get a total of fifteen
potential relationships. And this does
not include siblings on either side. So
we cannot afford to downplay the complexity of the relational web across two nuclear
families created by a single marriage union.
No comments:
Post a Comment