Oni-yome

When I went outside into my garden to hang the laundry a week ago, I heard angry shout. The family living in the house opposite was quarreling one another.

Actually they are a family of six. However their three children are grown, so they lives far apart from their parents. Now three people live in a house, a man, his wife and his elderly mother in her 80s.

At first, the wife and her mother-in-low had a bitter battle. I heard many abusive words of the wife to her mother-in-low. Next, the husband participated in the battle. It was the couple versus their elderly mother started.

Now I call the wife “Oni-yome(鬼嫁)”.

Actually they have quarreled one another since before. However, the elderly mother started to go to 朝起き会 in the past few years. 朝起き会is a sort of religion, she learned to appreciate everyone and everything without having complaint there. So she has attempted to say only a few words ”ありがとう” ”ごめんんなさい”. That’s why, the number of their quarrel was decreasing. These days, I hardly heard them.

However, apparently the elderly mother lost her patience.

She can’t go into the kitchen because an Oni-yome is there, so she goes to the convenience stores to buy breakfast and lunch every morning. I’m not sure, but she can eat only dinner, the Oni-yome cooked, alone in her room. The Oni-yome calls her mother-in-low “anta(あんた)”, never call “mother(おかあさん)”. We don’t call our mothers “Anta”, I think it seems like looking down at her.

I feel disgust her attitude to her elderly mother and her abusive words.