– Gogona Saikia
Visualize the persona that takes shape when you think of a feminist role model – then reverse it. Is a feminist typically young-ish, maybe? From a liberal family and region? Educated, vocal? So a reverse could be an older woman, from a traditional family, not too educated, maybe from a highly patriarchal culture? I could definitely have related to this opposite-imagery—until I met my mother-in-law.
When I got married, I was about 30, a socially conscious, assertive woman. I have been working since I was 21, am used to a certain level of freedom, and have rocked many a boat to shape my own life. My MIL, meanwhile, is a 60-year-old homemaker who studied till the 8h grade, got married when she was 18, and took up the responsibility of running the entire household. Few relationships can be forged between personalities as contrary as her and me.
Yet, when I entered her household as a daughter-in-law, moving from a freer lifestyle in the northeast to a rigid patriarchal culture in the north, it was she who became my savior.
I had thought for the longest time that after marriage, the role of “savior” would be taken up by my husband. When I met him years ago, I felt a breath of fresh air. I have talked to very few people who genuinely consider all genders to be equal. Even among them, there have been close to none who were devoid of the more nuanced manifestations of sexism-often masked as care or tradition.
My husband broke the pattern. Both his words and actions embraced equality and respect. The few concerns I had about him were insignificant.
The only major concern I felt was not even about him, and it was something I couldn’t have imagined: his home region. As someone who had never visited the place but had a strong mental image based on stereotypes, suffice to say, I had my guard up. I demanded that he be my shield at his home after marriage and deflect his relatives conservative expectations.
What I didn’t know was that my MIL had already quietly taken up this responsibility.
The woman gave me a glimpse of the fire within her the very first time I visited my husband’s hometown before marriage. Ours was an inter-caste, inter-state, long-distance relationship that blossomed during the COVID lockdown. We visited each other’s hometowns a few times and decided that during those visits, we would stay together under one roof—how else could we truly know each other? Neither family approved it, but he faced stronger protests from his people than I did from mine.
It was his mother who helped turn the tide at his home: “The only alternatives are for her to stay at our home for a month, or alone at a hotel. Staying with us will be difficult, and I am not letting her stay alone for a whole month.” She didn’t approve of our decision to cohabit either, she knew the risk she was taking by going against the family, yet she didn’t hesitate when choosing to prioritize the safety of a woman she hadn’t even met.
Over the next few months, as my husband and I planned our wedding, I increasingly felt her presence. He kept describing to me their traditional wedding rituals, asking which ones I was comfortable with. I rejected more practices than I accepted: no ghunghat (veil), no muhdikhai (a post-wedding event where the bride’s veil is removed with fanfare), no sindoor (vermillion) or mangalsutra (a neckwear worn by married women), no pomp and show overall. Both he and I braced for battle: he was going to face it directly, I just had to keep standing by him and not lose hope.
But the war never came. Instead, my MIL began to show a side of her that no one knew. This woman, who had spent her entire life in conformance, barely showed resistance to my unconventional requests, and convinced other relatives to stand down too. It was surreal.
The wedding eventually happened largely the way we wanted it to. Then came the harder part: assimilating with their family while upholding my hard boundaries. Compared to the wedding, a one-time event, the next phase was going to last for months, years maybe. My concerns changed; MIL’s support didn’t.
Once I began staying in their home, I saw her daily routine: waking up at six, making elaborate breakfasts for five-six people, washing utensils, sweeping and mopping, and everything else.
Meanwhile, I was used to waking up at 8-9 am, fixing up simple breakfasts for myself and mum, doing laundry just twice a week, and sweeping, mopping, and washing utensils only on days the house help didn’t show up—far from the hectic daily life that my MIL led.
I made a hard decision to set realistic expectations: despite feeling guilt, I didn’t get up from the bed before 8-9 am the first few days; took over washing utensils, sweeping, and mopping and shared these chores with my husband; but never picked up cooking duties.
The passive-aggressive comments were coming, right? They had to. I was a new DIL in a traditional home in north India. Not only was I not doing the usual things, I wasn’t even dressed like a new bride. How could there not be any confrontation in that situation.
But nope.
I couldn’t decide if I was thrown off, or very pleasantly surprised, that the general reaction in his home, from his mother, was far from what I was anticipating. At most, I faced some instances of silence from an upset MIL over the next few months. A few minor comments from other relatives here and there, but never a word from her asking me to do anything! didn’t want to.
It took me time to accept the love that was coming my way without making any noise, without declaring itself loudly. When you are bombarded with certain expectations from a young age and have to fight everyday to be able to live your life your way, it’s not too easy to put your guard down, is it? Especially when it’s someone who is supposed to have such expectations. But with time, it got easier to breathe freely in their home, and the guilt of sleeping in and the stress of saying “no” kept fading.
Sometimes I wonder: Would I have been able to create my own life even at my in-laws’ home if my MIL hadn’t silently supported me all this time? Is her quiet resistance an attempt to give me the freedom she never had? Am I filling a gap in her life, helping her express a rebellion that she couldn’t afford all those years?
I don’t know, and I am not sure I want to know.
It’s been three years now since I married her son. During our last visit to my in-laws’, I went to their bedroom one night as father and son were bonding over a cricket match. MIL was lying on the bed, phone in her hands. I sat beside her and curiously peered at what she was doing on the phone.
She was playing Wordle. I watched, incredulous, as she made carefully calculated guesses, and won. She had won at Wordle, a game created by one of the world’s most reputable English publications. Three years ago, she was just starting to learn English, all on her own. She had downloaded Duolingo and was spending time on it religiously. Now she has a win rate of 83% on Wordle.
The woman continues to blow me away.
When we were leaving this time, I gave her a peck on her head. I had never done that before. She seemed surprised; in her family, DILs don’t kiss their MILs, they touch their feet. After a brief pause, she smiled.
This is microfeminism – the love and courage to hold space for another woman’s freedom even when it was denied to her. I now know the quiet revolutions that she and many others carry within, that unfold in kitchens and bedrooms rather than on protest grounds, shaping lives with silent resilience. My MIL is proof that sometimes, the most radical feminist act is simply to let another woman breathe.
