In "Dream of the Red Chamber", there are many descriptions of the relationship between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. The Jia family is a large family, with layers of mother-in-law and daughter-in-law relationships, complex contradictions, often rising from wave to wave.
Jia Mu is an old lady who handles things fairly, she herself is from a noble birth, although she loves her granddaughter-in-law Feng Jie, and the daughters-in-law also pay more attention to Lady Wang, but this should not only be because of the Wang family lineage, after all, Jia Mu is not such a snobbish person.
Qin Keqing, the granddaughter-in-law of the cold door, can still get the love and attention of Jia Mu, and the identity of You's mother is also very humble, but she also has three thin faces in front of Jia Mu, and the only daughter-in-law who is not welcomed seems to be Lady Xing.
There are not many descriptions of Lady Xing in the book, and in addition to her helping her husband Jia pardon her little wife, there is another thing, that is, to suppress Lady Wang and Wang Xifeng through the embroidery of spring sacs, and another thing, although it is not a major event, can glimpse Lady Xing's psychology.
The cause of this incident was that Yingchun's nursing mother stole her precious jewelry Leisi Jinfeng, stole it not for emergency or other reasonable purposes, but for gambling money, and later because the Grand View Garden gambling became a common practice, Jia Mu ordered a thorough investigation, after the incident, Yingchun's nursing mother and other people were convicted and supervised, and the nursing mother's daughter-in-law came to plead with Yingchun, hoping that she could intercede in front of the old lady and let her grandmother go. This daughter-in-law ostensibly asked Yingchun to intercede, saying that she would redeem Jinfeng, but in fact she was bullying Yingchun by coercion and bullying yingchun in order to redeem Jinfeng and the nursing mother's love for raising Yingchun from childhood.
After Lady Xing learned of this, she did come to Yingchun's room to inquire about it herself, but her purpose was not to teach Yingchun to deal with this matter, nor to help her comfort her, but only to ridicule and ridicule her.
Although Yingchun was a concubine and Lady Xing was only her nominal mother, according to the social norms, Lady Xing had the responsibility and obligation to take care of Yingchun, but it was obvious that she did not fulfill her responsibilities and obligations, and in this regard, she was far inferior to Lady Wang.
The original text describes Madame Xing's performance in the Spring Room as follows:
Lady Xing said, "You are so old, your wet mother is doing this, and you don't talk about her." Now that everyone else is fine, what does it mean for us people to do this! Yingchun lowered her head to get the belt, and half-replied, "I said her twice, and she couldn't listen to her." Besides, she was a mother, and only she said mine, not me. Lady Xing said, "Nonsense! You're not good, she should have said, now that she has broken the law, you should take out the identity of a young lady. If he dares not follow, you will go back to me. Now wait for outsiders to know what it means! Moreover, only she goes to put her head, and I am afraid that she will borrow some rings and clothes and shoes from you for money, and you who are soft-hearted may not take her carefully. If you are deceived by her, I am a person who has no money, and see how you celebrate the holiday tomorrow! Yingchun did not say a word, only bowed his head and made a belt.
When Lady Xing saw her like this, she sneered, "It's always your good brother and sister-in-law, a pair of children, second master, grandma Feng, two mouths to cover the sky, Pepsi thoughtful, even a total of this one sister, do not care at all." But whatever fell from me, there was another word to say - only by them. Moreover, you are not raised by me, and although you are not born to the same mother as him, whether you are the same father, you should also look after each other and avoid others from laughing. I think that the affairs of the world are also difficult to determine, you are raised by the eldest grandfather and the predecessors, and the detective here is also raised by the second master and the predecessors, and the origin is the same. Now that your mother is dead, it seems that only your mother is ten times stronger than aunt Zhao now, and you should be stronger than the detective. How could it be less than half her? Who knows, it's not a strange thing! But my whole life, childless and childless, clean all my life, can not provoke people to laugh at the high. ”
These words revealed several layers of Mrs. Xing's meaning and attitude psychology: blame and complaint, irony and sarcasm, jealousy and ridicule, shirking responsibility, and lack of foresight. Here's a look at them.
Yingchun is a girl with no opinion and no ideas, and in Jia Province, she is equivalent to a nothing. Supposedly, there was such a girl in a family who should have been given more care, but apparently she was unlucky. Jia Mu has her beloved grandchildren and granddaughters, Madame Wang is not very in charge, and only puts Baoyu first in her heart, while Sister Feng only looks at Jia Mu's wind direction, and she has her own likes and dislikes, she likes to be clever, so Yingchun naturally can only live into the air of the Grand View Garden.
When there was an accident in her room, the nurse stole valuable jewelry as a gambling capital to gather the crowd to gamble money, and when Mrs. Xing learned about it, her first words were not comfort or advice, but unceremoniously blamed and complained. Yingchun was originally humble and cowardly, but you can imagine how uncomfortable she would be when she heard this resentment from her mother-in-law.
Moreover, the "our people" and "outsiders" in Lady Xing's population obviously treat the big room and the second room separately, and the outsiders in her mouth are only afraid of Jia Mu, Jia Zhengwang's wife, Jia Zhen Youshi and even Feng Jie. It is better to say that she is a good face or to maintain her own dignity, but when she so strictly distinguishes between "our people" and "outsiders", I am afraid that she will also reveal her inner narrowness.
As for the sarcasm and sarcasm of Yingchun, it is because she also thought that Yingchun's nursing mother would ask her to borrow some jewelry and other things as a capital. Of course, her guess is good, but she said here that if Yingchun has no money for the holiday because of the nursing mother, she does not care.
As a concubine, it is a matter of duty to discipline her daughter and punish slaves, not to mention that Yingchun's own conditions are weak, and it is reasonable to help her appropriately, but Lady Xing does not have this heart. In her eyes, it is her pair of "good brothers and sisters-in-law who are thoughtful and thoughtful", and when she says this, her words are full of irony and disdain. From her entire speech, it seems that it is full of negative energy.
It is understandable to say that Sister Feng is unpleasant, but Jia Lian is a fairly generous and humble person, and she is also filial to Jia Yu and Lady Xing.
Madame Xing's move can only confirm the narrowness of her heart. In front of Yingchun, she said that Jia Lian's two sons covered the sky and the sun, and there was such a sister in common, "I don't care at all", which is suspected of provoking relations, which is not at all the behavior of a mother, let alone like the eldest wife of a virtuous and capable aristocratic family.
Let's talk about Lady Xing's jealousy. From the drunken words of Uncle Wen Xing, we learned that Lady Xing was from a small portal in the middle of the family road, the family was not rich, and there were still weak brothers and younger sisters, but even so, when she got married, she brought the family's money and property to the Jia family, and did not take care of her younger sisters. Even if what Uncle Xing said was untrue, there was always some credibility, which showed that Lady Xing was cold and selfish.
The family situation is not good, resulting in her lady and daughter-in-law Wang Xifeng will be inferior in front of the concubine Wang Xifeng, the environment she is in and her own identity determines that she is inferior to Lady Wang and Sister Feng in many ways, for a long time, the power of the housekeeper and many resources of the family tend to be Mrs. Jia Zhengxing, Baoyu and Fengjie, which leads to Lady Xing's jealousy, once she has the opportunity, she wants to embarrass the Wang family's aunt and nephew.
It was said earlier that she shirked her responsibility because she pushed the responsibility for not taking good care of Yingchun on Jia Lian's two sons. She felt that these two sons were thoughtful, but they didn't care about Yingchun. Although the brother and sister-in-law have the responsibility to take care of their sister, is she a mother who has no responsibility at all? Lady Xing's remarks slightly provoked the relationship between Jia Lian, Feng Jie and Yingchun and the suspicion of shirking their own responsibilities.
Regarding the taunt, Lady Xing compared Yingchun with Tanchun. She sarcastically said that only your mother was ten times stronger than her mother before, and now it seems that how come you are not half as good as her? This tone and psychology cannot but be said to be ironic and despised. Children are not angry, and mothers should be taught and comforted, not suppressed and ridiculed. The same words may be said by others, or they may just be lamented and angry, but from the mouth of The Xing Dynasty, it is different.
Finally, let's talk about Mrs. Xing's short-sightedness. She only saw that she was childless and childless in front of her, and she could not "make people laugh and talk about it", and felt that because she had no children, no one joked about her and her children, which seemed to her to be a good thing, but she never really saw a point: in the future, when she is old, who can she rely on?
She only realizes that money is her dependence, so "one of the children and slaves does not rely on one person and does not listen", only knows how to collect wealth and cling to Jia Pardon, but she cannot see that money can never buy real feelings and love, and money is also the easiest thing to scatter.
From this point of view, Wang Xifeng had still given Liu Grandma a little kindness, but Lady Xing had never left a little warmth in the human world. As You Shi said after eavesdropping on Uncle Xing's complaints, even her own brothers said so, and they didn't complain about these people complaining about her.
References: "Dream of the Red Chamber Fat Collection", by Cao Xueqin, Comments on Fat Yan Zhai, Yuelu Book Club.