Narrated Relationships: Mothers-in-Law and Daughters-in-Law Justifying Conflicts in Taiwan's Chhan-chng

Abstract

In this study, I examined how mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law in Taiwan narrated relational conflicts. The data consisted of narrative practices that emerged from open-ended interviews with 16 mothers-in-law and their 16 daughters-in-law. These practices were analyzed as situated vocabularies of motives, negotiated in talk with the interviewer. Findings indicate that conflicts centered on the issue of daughters-in-law challenging the authority of their mother-in-law, hence violating the hierarchical structuring of this society. Mothers-in-law justified their motives as upholding the value of respecting elders even if elders acted in an unjust manner. Daughters-in-law justified their motives differently, saying that conflicts were the result of unintentional acts or the faults of elders. Agency was not entirely thwarted, as daughters-in-law possessed a range of means to indirectly express displeasure with their elders.