What a Mother-in-Law!

After supper one evening, Max, a harangued husband, sings along to a Yiddish song on the radio. His wife Sadie, who doesn't like "The Jewish Hour," puts on some dance music, which Max despises. After he pleads for just one Yiddish song, she relents, and they hug and sing along as they reminisce about how they used to sit together in the evening. Sadie then remembers that she is late for a bridge game and goes to dress. Max's uncle arrives in a dejected state because of a quarrel with his wife. Max asserts that he is the boss in his home, but then Sadie orders him to clear the table and do the dishes before she leaves. When his uncle points out that Max also is afraid of his wife, Max says that it is his mother-in-law, not his wife, whom he fears. In revolt, Max takes off his apron, gets out a bottle of wine, offers a drink to his uncle and tells him the story of Hymie Moses, the son of the tailor, and his mother-in-law. Max begins the story before Hymie marries into the Relkin family. On a Sunday morning, Samuel Relkin makes breakfast for his bossy wife Gertrude and his attractive daughter Frances, both of whom sleep late. After Frances awakens, two of her three boyfriends arrive with theater tickets for her. The third, Hymie, a shabbily dressed, naïve schlemiel , is laughed at by children as he walks through the New York streets to the Relkin home. Although her mother does not approve, Frances goes for the bashful Hymie and they marry. A year later, Frances has a baby. Frances and Hymie have their first real argument as Frances, egged on by her mother, complains that she always has to stay at home with the baby. The quarrel ends with Hymie staying with the baby, while Frances goes to a wedding, despite the fact that he is completely incompetent as a babysitter. Five years pass, and the couple now have two children. Because she thinks that Hymie does not earn enough, Gertrude urges Frances to divorce him. Although Frances at first resists, when Hymie and her mother get into an argument, Frances decides to seek a divorce. Samuel tells Hymie about a man who was nagged so much by his wife that he went insane. When Frances is about to leave with the children, Hymie suddenly starts making unusual movements and gestures and attempts to jump out the window. Both Frances and her mother are horrified, and Frances says she now will stay. When Hymie is alone with Samuel, he explains that he is only pretending to be insane. He tells Samuel to convince the doctor, who has been called, to go along with the ruse, but the doctor arrives while Samuel is away and takes Hymie to an insane asylum. Hymie escapes from his cell, but he is confronted by a huge insane person, whom he pacifies by giving him sugar. When he runs out of sugar, Hymie acts like a boss to the man, and the man becomes afraid of Hymie. When Hymie is released, he reveals to Samuel his new theory: that women, like the insane, want to have a boss. Frances now tells Hymie that she wants only him, and Hymie says that his mother-in-law will no longer have anything to say in his house. At the story's conclusion, Max and his uncle, having drunk the bottle of wine, sing and dance, chanting that they are the bosses of the house. Sadie enters and when she complains about the dishes still on the table, Max acts like he is insane. Sadie, however, realizes that he is copying Hymie's trick and increases her nagging. Max asks his uncle for help, but his uncle, newly depressed, says that he has his own troubles.