Mother-in-laws (MILs) can be the recipients of some bad stereotyping in the West. I’ll say it clearly at the start for the record: My Mother-in-law is great! And for a lot of people in the Western world, the stereotype doesn’t have as much bearing as perhaps it did at some point in time.
Recently, we’ve been learning a lot about the role of MILs in our new country, and it is often not pretty. A newly-married husband will bring his bride from her home to his family home in the village. Often the man is quite a bit older than the wife, and with marriages being arranged, there is little to foster a close relational friendship between the two. Once he has deposited her in the village, her husband will often return to the city to work, leaving her alone in her new environment of people whom she does not really know. She is then expected to serve the new family in a slave-like capacity, with the exception of a few weeks relief when she bears a child (preferably a son). Extracted from her relational environment, she has no network of support, and often acts merely as free labour for her husband’s family. (Of course, this is a generality and not every instance).
The worst relationship within the village home is that between the new addition and her Mother-in-law. Just as with the typical reality worldwide, of the bullied becoming bullies later in life, so it is with this relationship. The one who was once oppressed and forced to serve a family foreign to her, has now found relief in the form of someone lower on the totem pole. She can now assume the position that once loomed over her, and make life miserable for the daughter-in-law, especially as all the men will be out of the house for the majority of the time, leaving only these two broken women to interact.
It is a distressing reality of our new country. Praise God for one instance recently of a believer who came under Christian discipline until he brought his new wife from the village to live with him in the city. The local church wants to break the cycle of generational abuse and foster godly marriages and family relationships.
Perhaps it was all this discussion on MILs, I don’t know, but last week as Dee and I read about a girl named Ruth, I suddenly noticed a detail that I’d never seen before. Her Mother-in-law. This is probably the moment where you think, Dónal, the whole story of Ruth centres around her relationship with her MIL… how did you miss that? But I’m not referring to Naomi.
Certainly, Ruth was a blessed woman. She had that first wonderful relationship with Naomi that changed the course of her life. It was an incredible Mother-Daughter-in-law bond. But my insight actually came from Matthew chapter 1. As we read the genealogy of Christ, I noticed for the first time that it includes:
“Nahshon the father of Salmon, and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David the king.”
– Matthew 1:4-6
Sure, I knew that Rahab the redeemed Canaanite was in Christ’s genealogy, sure I knew Ruth, the Moabitess was too. But I had never realised that Rahab was Ruth’s second Mother-in-law. Maybe we should start referring to it as the story of two great Mother-in-laws.
Why is this important? Well, consider the situation in South Asia as an example of what life could be like for a new bride entering into a family community as an outsider. In most non-21st Century-Western contexts, marriage is not only (or even, predominantly) about the husband and wife’s relationship, but rather about maintaining bonds between families. Indeed, this is the backdrop to the book of Ruth. But just because it is a beneficial relationship for security of the bride, and even if she gets on well with the husband, it could yet be a pitiful existence.
Indeed, for a Moabite woman, I’m sure she would have been the talk of the town. The side-glances and whispers as she walked down the street, the gossip surrounding Boaz, perhaps even the reasoning that she was the reason her first husband died (this still exists in many parts of the world!). After all, she a foreigner… a pagan… an enemy of Israel. Eveyone knew the story of Lot’s daughters and where the Moabites came from.
Her marriage took place at a time when “everybody did what was right in their own eyes.” The book of Judges shines a light on the fact that most people were not following the law and repeatedly needed repentance and deliverance. But somehow, Ruth manages to stumble across the one man who follows Israel’s laws. One man who is incredibly generous to foreigners. One man who diligently makes sure that the laws for leaving gleanings for the stranger are implemented by his men. Why was he the exception?
I think that it was because of his mother. Boaz was a half-breed, half Canaanite, half Israelite. His mother had once upon a time pledged her loyalty to the covenant community of Israel, and to their God, and received mercy. She had found a wonderful, merciful home there, living under the blessings of Yahweh. It is impossible to fathom that she would not have passed this on to her son, Boaz.
Above all stories, it must have been the most relayed to him time and time again, that his mother was a foreigner, a broken woman, under judgement in her former life, who once found refuge with the people of God. Surely, he grew up with an eye for the foreigner that his peers did not have. And, just as some of my teammates are couples made up of once Missionary Kids, due to the common bond, so also this foreign woman who looked for refuge with the people of God would surely have caught his eye.
And then, what of Ruth’s relationship with her new Mother-in-law? Of course we can only speculate, but I expect that these two foreign women had a special bond over their shared experience. I expect that Ruth really did find a new home, not only in Israel, but under the roof of Boaz and his family.
And if you want to take the speculation further, did David know his great-grandmother? Did his Grandpa Obed sit him on his lap as a child and regale him with the stories of the two foreign women who found refuge with God’s people? Did it form in David the compassionate heart that he was known for, that welcomed the broken and outcasts, that raised up the likes of Mephibosheth? Who knows. But for this I am thankful, that Ruth had Rahab as a Mother-in-law, and was not left to suffer alone.
May it be a reality in South Asia and across the world, that broken lives may find refuge with the people of God, and that the stories they pass on to the next generation may alter the course of those families. That the gospel would bring a break in generational trauma, and redeemed lives may welcome the lowly and lift them to high places. And just as with this beautiful genealogy of Matthew 1, may those stories that are told, ultimately point to “Jesus… who is called the Christ.”
Imitators of Those 
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