L-ewwel il-mami, it-tieni jien, it-tielet it-tfal (ghax jigu mil-mami) u l-ahhar il-mara
Fresh from a court report in the on-line version of The Times, here’s a charming illustration of a typical Maltese marriage in which a man puts his loyalty towards his mother way ahead of his loyalty towards his wife, and then wonders why there are problems. It takes two to tango in this kind of power struggle between wife and mother-in-law, and the two in question are the mother and her son. Basically, it’s up to the mother to step aside and mean it, however difficult it might be, once her son has another woman in his life. Instead, so many Maltese mothers of sons actually take a perverted pleasure in competing with their daughters-in-law in terms of cooking, housekeeping, childcare, and actually ENJOYING it when their little boy comes home to complain that his wife doesn’t cook/wash the floor well/iron his shirts/bathe the children.
So much for all the focus on the importance of a Catholic marriage rite, when all these Maltese husbands and their mothers blank out one of the most significant and meaningful parts of the ceremony. It’s this: “Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh.”
Repeat after me: the man LEAVES his father and mother and CLEAVES to his wife. No two ways about it. This is not an exhortation to all married men to dump their parents. As somebody with no daughters, I would be the last to say that. But it is symbolic. The leaving is an emotional leaving. There are fresh loyalties – to the wife – and they are stronger than the loyalties to parents. It is an emotional cleaving. Many women will know what I mean when I say that, in an argument or a tussle, if a husband sides with his mother or sticks up for her to the detriment of his wife, the damage is deep and probably also permanent. Men think of it as two women locked in a power struggle for the control of one man. It’s not. It goes much deeper than that. Women instinctively know that if their husband is putting his mother first, then his loyalty, love and devotion are seriously in question. The man who is really in love breaks away from his mother in a natural process. The one who is not does not.
So why don’t the Book of Genesis and the Catholic marriage rite make a similar demand of women to leave their parents and cleave to their husband? It’s probably because the marital problems caused by mothers of sons are a phenomenon older than the Book of Genesis, and while there are some women who are so immature as to go running off to their parents at the first sign or scent of grown-up trouble, there is nothing to resemble the scale of the red-rag-to-a-bull problem caused by men and their mothers. It is universal.
So here’s the court report.
“In another case, a court heard today how a man had allegedly assaulted his wife after she refused to assist his mother who was about to be taken to hospital. John Caruana 39, from Siggiewi, pleaded not guilty to having assaulted his wife, threatening her and slightly injuring her on Saturday afternoon. Magistrate Edwina Grima heard Police Inspector Tony Cachia say that this seemed to be an isolated incident; however he added that on speaking to Mrs Caruana she told him that there had been a similar less serious incident some months back. He added that she had told him that this was the first time that it had escalated to such a degree.Lawyer Vince Micallef told the court that it was a small argument that had been blown out of proportion, when Mrs Caruana refused to help her husband’s mother who was to be taken to hospital. Magistrate Grima said that under no circumstances should violence be used and warned Mr Caruana that in granting him bail, it was solely up to him if he stayed out of prison or not. Mr Caruana was subsequently granted bail against a personal guarantee of €2,000.”
18 Comments Comment
Reply to Corinne Vella Click here to cancel reply
For a minute I thought this title refers to dear mummy’s boy Gowzef… it does fit him to a tee doesn’t it, Daph?
[Daphne – We’d have to consult Lil Din, but if he were devoted to his mother, rather than the son of a devoted mother, he would be a Nationalist.]
so many Maltese mothers of sons actually take a perverted pleasure in competing with their daughters-in-law…. reminds me of that irritating sitcom “Everybody Loves Raymond”
@Daphne
?? I didn’t understand. Can you explain your comment about Gowzef being a Nat?
PS: Hi Meerkat, sweetie!!!
[Daphne – His mother is one. He chose his father’s politics.]
What’s absurd about this news item ( http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20080901/local/boy-16-jailed-for-two-months ) is that although it appeared in tandem with another one (about a boy), the five men commenting on The Times blog so far didn’t even seem to notice anything wrong with the situation, because they have ignored it totally.
Hey amrio ruhi qalbi :)))))
erm Daph, calling his wife ‘Lil Din’ does point to il-Mami’s supremacy over the wife doesn’t it?
[Daphne – Quite. I can’t see any man referring to his mother that way.]
This is intriguing. I am lost. How does this court case lead to Joseph ? It does not, does it ? I could stay up all night relating my experiences on mother in law, husband and wife tussles. They have cost me hundreds of hours of my working life in vain (usually) attempts to smooth things over. Let us have a discussion about this very valid social problem by all means. But do not bring in politics or politicians where they do not fit . Not by any stretch of the imagination. There is nothing funny about this at all. It is a social scourge of the first order and trivialising the issue by bringing Joseph in is rather sad, to say the least. Joseph can be dealt with and adequately sorted out in other less serious fora.
Anthony: How would you sort it all out? Hundreds of women – no, thousands – have tried for a lifetime without success.
@ Corinne Vella “Anthony: How would you sort it all out?” I’ll tell you how I would sort it out – I’d suggest to the wives that since the husband prefers mummy to them, he can bloody well go back to mummy. Maybe since there is no divorce they can file for an annulment. The reason being that the husband is still mummy’s boy and not man enough.
Not to condone the violence of the husband, but not helping to take your mother in-law to hospital is somewhat base. It goes beyond the petty power struggles between the wife and the mother and, let’s be fair, everybody would be irked in such a situation. Obviously, few people would actually resort to violence in such an instance.However, just because a person is married doesn’t mean that something as basic as taking your own mother to hospital makes you a mammone.
This doesn’t mean that there aren’t mothers who do suffocate marriages, and yes do take pleasure in seeing their daughter in-law as not being “good enough for their son”, even if she’s a nobel-prize winning doctor who cooks like Nigella Lawson and has the looks of Jessica Alba.
[Daphne – Nigella Lawson is MUCH better looking than Jessica Alba. She’s beautiful in the classic sense of the word, whereas Alba is merely pretty and won’t age well at all. But apart from that, if this woman refused to take her mother-in-law to hospital, then you can rest assured that there was a very good reason for it. Women don’t dislike their mothers-in-law on a whim; there’s usually ample justification. And quite frankly, he should have taken his own damned mother to hospital, or does he see this kind of thing as women’s work?]
@ Corinne Vella.
You are perfectly right. In fact I emphasised that I tried to help usually in vain. There is no harm in trying. With all due respect to all mothers my personal opinion is that the root of the evil is simply that many mothers resent anyone who competes with them for their children’s attention. It is pure egoism. An exaggerated maternal instinct possibly. Thankfully the vast majority of mothers I know are faultless in this respect.
In my time have know it to be the other way round where the wife decides that Mummy comes first. Mummy looks after the children whilst the wife goes to play tennis, goes back to mummy to collect the kids and forgets to leave any food in the fridge when daddy comes home from work.Perhaps those were the old days when the wife didnt work. I hope so.
As for divorce, as a widower for the past 25 years (now aged 85) I think it should be introduced. However I think couples should take into consideration if they have young children. The process should be made difficult for it to be obtained so that couples will have time to think and think again.
There were times in my 39=year marriage when I felt like walking out – and my late wife probably wanted to do the same when I was being a real sh..! But in the end it worked out
Why isn’t Aedipus Complex being mentioned in this case?
Ha nghida bil-Malti “ghadu ma’ nfatamx minn m’ommu …….. mid-dehra”
[Daphne – It’s Oedipus.]
@ Daphne : Most probably you are right , but I found also Aedipus .
The Oedipus Complex manifests itself in little children. A married man who still shows signs of this complex, which is not impossible, should never have married in the first place. This would constitute an invalid marriage. I feel that in the vast majority of cases the problem lies with the husband’s mother.
“This would constitute an invalid marriage” spot on Anthony !
Well we should not be surprised. This is the country where unmarried men (and women too for that matter)continue to live with the parents well past their 30s because they are too attached to mummy to leave the nest!
“Nigella Lawson is MUCH better looking than Jessica Alba. She’s beautiful in the classic sense of the word, whereas Alba is merely pretty and won’t age well at all.”
Check out these sites – rather eye opening
http://style.uk.msn.com/fashionandbeauty/celebritychic/gallery.aspx?cp-documentid=9259216
http://www.anvari.org/cols/Stars_without_Make_Up.html