You don’t get MIL jokes any more. They were at their height in the 1950s and 60s, but they weren’t that prominent prior to or after that period – though they did exist.
Why was that the height? It’s not like marriage was a brand new institution and suddenly there was something to make fun of (unlike, say, VCRs – you don’t get jokes about them until the late 1970s – because until then there weren’t any). My first thought is that the post-war marriage boom led to more MIL per capita thus an increase in awareness of them. But that’s silly. What really happened?
Maybe beginning in the '60s more mothers-in-law were going to nursing homes rather than going to live with their children.
I’d like to know more MIL jokes.
My fave MIL joke: My MIL rang the doorbell. I came to the door and there she was, standing on the porch. She said “Can I stay here a while?” I said “sure” and shut the door.
Well, “mother-in-law jokes” were a staple of Jewish comedians in the Catskills, from the 1930s through the 1960s.
Why don’t you hear such jokes so much any more? Well, a generation or two ago, a young couple that got married probably had to live with one set of in-laws or the other for at least a few years. Ever see Barry Levinson’s movie “Avalon”? It shows how generations of a Jewish family were living together under one roof in Baltimore in the 1940s… and while this was wonderful in some ways (it led to close families, and nurtured close relationships among cousins, between grandparents and grandchildren), it could also feel oppressive! Imagine having to share an apartment with an old nag who thinks you’re a bum who’s not good enough for her little girl!
Mother-in-law jokes were cathartic, in their day, for a man who had to share close quarters with a mother-in-law who hated him.
Today, of course, very few of us live close to our relatives in ethnic neighborhoods. A young married couple in the suburbs doesn’t have to see either set of in-laws very often. So, even a man who dislikes his mother-in-law intensely can grit his teeth and endure her for a few hours every now and then. It’s not as if he has to live with her.
The jokes have vanished because our lifestyles have changed so much.
P.S. I lucked out- I happen to like my mother-in-law a great deal (this time out… my first mother-in-law was WORTHY of every bad Henny Youngman joke!).