| An Indian woman is raised by her mother, her grandmother, and other women of the extended family system (Kurtz, 1992; Roland, 1988). There is a dearth of psychoanalytic literature on understanding of the development of females in India (Akhtar & Tummala-Narra, 2008). Further, there are inconsistencies in literature on the mother-daughter relationship in India. In a culture of strong preference for sons, girls are often raised with an attitude of preparing them for a life after marriage, and the home after marriage is considered their real home. Women are subjected to the hierarchical structure of the family, where they are at the bottom of the social ranking and there are cultural sanctions on autonomous decision making by the elderly. Daughters are also likely to repress their memories of resentment toward their mothers and project them on their mothers-in-law, as the Indian culture accommodates daughters-in-law's feelings of resentment toward their mothers-in-law (Kumar, 1989).;A feminist qualitative research methodology is adopted to explore the inner self-other representations and inner psychic struggles of Indian women. The specific issues explored in this study are (a) the perceptions of Indian women's experiences of multiple mothering, (b) how these women balance the interdependent self with the autonomous self, and (c) these women's current relationships with their mothers-in-law. In-depth, semi-structured interviews and a vignette technique were used on a sample of eight women who had been married for at least a year, were college educated, and spoke fluent English. The interviews were audiotaped and then transcribed for analysis. The feminist research technique of the Listening Guide (Gilligan, Spencer, Weinberg, Bertsch, 2003) was used to explore the multiple voices in the narratives of the women interviewed. The results of the study provided insights on the early object representations of Indian women that shaped their personalities and relationships. |
