Our relations-in-law are upon us!" Within my secret self I pondered whether or not the visitors dreaded the expected ordeal as much as the visited did.
The phrases, "my husband's relatives," "my wife's family," are seldom pronounced without an accompanying bitter thought.

John tolerates Mary's kin, and Mary regards John's father and mother, sisters and brothers with an ill-concealed distrust and enmity.

Sometimes there is just cause for this antagonistic feeling; more frequently it is the outcome of custom.

It is fashionable to regard connections by marriage as necessary evils.

Some families, resolved to make the best of that which is inevitable, put a smiling face upon the whole matter, and hide from the outside world the knowledge of their chagrin.