Yeah, not American. I’d be pretty surprised if it wasn’t a trope found in many cultures, as knotting families together where things might be done differently combined with the power imbalance of parent and adult child is a pretty common cause for agro.
I think the jokes just come from men because traditionally there haven’t been nearly as many women comics. And women probably don’t find it as funny, as they have to live with the hell of their MILs telling them how to keep house, raise their children etc etc.
I thought the tradition was for conflict between a wife and her mother-in-law (the father of her husband). In patriarchal cultures where the daughter left her father’s house and moved into her husband’s house, the mother-in-law was still considered the queen bee of the female part of the household, and conflict would happen. Not so much with the husband or the father-in-law, at least not day-to-day, because the men were out working in the fields or hunting or herding, and because it was taken for granted that the man was in charge.
In this week’s gospel, Jesus is talking about how He brings division, and one of the conflicts He says He will create is between a daughter-in-law and her mother-in-law. Sons-in-law are not even mentioned, which I find interesting.
FWIW, my late mother-in-law was one of the sweetest ladies I ever met, and I loved her very much. And my grandmother, my mother’s mother, lived with us when I was growing up, until the day before she died. And it wasn’t until I was grown up and married that it occurred to me that my father lived with his mother-in-law for many years. And never even a hint of conflict. When I was a kid I just assumed that nobody fought because grandma was grandma, and everybody loves grandma (they did). Later I realized that there was a conscious effort on both sides to be respectful and accommodating. That’s why it worked.
I miss my grandma, and she has been dead for 46 years.
Regards,
Shodan
Mother-in-law jokes became a staple of early TV, maybe going back into radio or earlier. It’s a kind of universal humor that’s suitable for family audiences. In-laws can be a problem for anyone, but it’s not a case where everyone’s mother-in-law is an overbearing meddler, it’s just the proliferation of jokes that make it seem that way.
No, it’s at least as old as Ancient Rome:
Give up all hope of peace as long as your mother-in-law is still alive - Juvenal, Satires
My grandmother and my mother. Thirty years into my parents marriage my grandmother was still saying “what ever happened to that Maureen you went to prom with? She was such a nice girl.” There was no way to make my grandmother happy - especially for my mother. And then, when my mother stopped trying to make her happy, it was almost WWIII. I regularly go dance on the bitch’s grave (I don’t, but I’ve thought about it - she’s buried a mile or two up the road).
My mother-ex-law and me. When my ex started having his affair - and before I knew about it, he went on a vacation with his parents. They took his girlfriend. It wasn’t the only MIL offense over our five years together, but it was the worst.
My current MIL is not my best friend (she would like that sort of relationship - but we are too different), but she is a generous woman. There have been a few areas on contention - but not many - and she quickly came around to “I might not be exactly what she wanted in a daughter in law, but I was a great partner for her son.”
My own mother-in-law had her personal problems but she was very nice to me and didn’t interfere in our lives. My mother doesn’t interfere much in our lives either, but she’s an awful person in general. My wife’s too nice to tell her off but my brother’s wife doesn’t hesitate and we love to see it happen.
Men’s adversarial relationships with their mothers-in-law seems to be a common theme in pop culture, though most of the examples that readily spring to mind are from the 50’s and 60’s.
Popular music:
“Mother-In-Law” by Ernie K-Doe
“Situation Vacant” by The Kinks
TV:
Endora on Bewitched
Fred’s mother-in-law on The Flintstones
Comics:
Wikipedia describes the title character’s mother-in-law as “A stereotypical mother in law, she often visits to pepper Brutus with insults and emotional anguish.”
Thudlow Boink, the Wikipedia link is about The Flintstones.
D’oh! :smack: Mean to post this link, to the Wikipedia article on the comic strip The Born Loser.
It’s a standard common trope in British humour (and therefore elsewhere in the British-influenced Anglosphere): the comedian Les Dawson used MIL jokes as part of his staple act, including the epithet “Mussolini in knickers” - and try some of these:
http://youtu.be/tuFy3iCZ3x8?t=30
And there’s an old French music-hall song (“En plus grand”) of Maurice Chevalier, all about a pretty young girl asking him to explain various things, finishing up with a mother-in-law. The response roughly translates as:
“You’ve heard of vipers, camels, dromedaries, smallpox, scabies, Spanish flu, all the most frightening things on earth - well, a mother-in-law’s all that, only more so”
Husband is estranged from his father, and his mother passed away last year. It took a few years for she and I to reach an accommodation - we are very different people - but we both came from a place of love for her son, and that was what was important.
Husband gets along great with my folks - he loves them deeply, and vice versa.
I was going to say this. While conflicts still happen, I didn’t realize MILs were still a thing in popular culture. Given that writing back then was male dominated, most of the conflicts were with the guy’s MIL, but I do remember some with the suffocating mother protecting sonny from that other woman (his wife.)
Mine was fine.
I kinda like the little detail there. Not only will you get no peace, you can’t even hope for it 
I’m assuming the parenthetical was supposed to be “mother of her husband”. This has been my experience, and what I’ve observed from friends.
Sources of conflict I’ve noticed: It’s hard for the MIL to deal with the fact that she’s not the most important woman in her son’s life any more. The wife feels like the MIL is judging her harshly on traditional wife duties, like cooking, keeping house, and child-rearing.
Your spouse and your parent will always have conflicts. They both want to run your life, and they resent the interference.
As far as origin goes I think it comes from popular fiction here based mainly on the Jewish mother trope.
Another more in-depth cite as to the origin.
A great deal of the early entertainment industry in this country was made up of those of European Jewish decent. I think that is probably why our popular culture accepted this meme and generalized it to any and all mothers rather than it staying a strictly ethnic stereotype.
I aspire to be a MIL from hell … how bad? I’m not even a woman, that’s how bad …
I know the trope mostly as husband v wife’s mother. Pretty sure it’s been engrained to me from watching the Flintstones as a kid. (ETA: Ah, Youtube link.)
American? I’m pretty sure this crosses cultural lines. Though it’s not normally a ‘joke’ in some parts of the world…mother in laws can be real monsters in some cultures. I understand in many Asian countries and cultures they are. I know this is a real thing in Mexico. No idea about Europe…maybe it’s not a thing there, which is why the OP thinks it’s an American quirk.
BTW, my own mother in law is pretty good and we get along well enough. My wife doesn’t get on that great with my own mother, though they aren’t enemies or at each others throats or anything…it’s more a cultural difference I think.