Writing the Stereotypical Mother-in-Law in Fiction

In literature, it seems that the most attributed wicked parent-in-law is the mother-in-law.  It seems that while men are usually more cruel, why is it that the mother-in-law is the stereotypical nagger?  Perhaps it'sb ecause women tend to nag more than men do.  Or two, the father-in-law usually dies ahead leaving the mother-in-law.  Now for my example...


There is the stereotypical Chinese mother-in-law who is usually presented as the antagonist instead of the father-in-law.  Most father-in-laws while they may be the bad husbands or whatever tend to quiet down or maybe men aren't as confronting as women.  On the side of the mother-in-law in stereotypical Chinese culture, they did most of the rearing of their sons, they spent most of their younger years under the abusive mother-in-law.  Liu Xue Hua has played the roles of the abused daughter-in-law and has later played in later years the part of the abusive mother-in-law.  In the case of women, they can be more noisy, frustrated (due to years of bullying) and not to mention too much of the perfectionist.


The American movie "The Monster-in-Law" which unlike most mother-in-law issues was a comedy.  Jane Fonda tries to be the worst mother-in-law in fearing of losing her son.  On the other hand, think of Elaine Stritch who is plainly just a lot worse than Jane Fonda.  In this case, Viola the mother-in-law has already lost her husband a lot earlier.  So I guess most father-in-laws die early before they can become subject to such jokes.  Or two, the mother being the one to bring up the children gets insecure later on when things don't go their way.


A trope-breaker of the nagging mother-in-law was however reversed in the fanfiction called Star Wars: The Black Binder to which is an alternate universe where Palpatine is Anakin's biological father, he marries Shmi when Anakin was three years old and well sadly Luke and Leia are agents of the dark side but it ends up becoming hilarious instead. Shmi is Padme's reasonable mother-in-law while Palpatine frequently mistreats Padme due to all the years of meddling she had in his career.  Well, the fact that Anakin is still whole, Padme is still alive and for Palpatine, he's literally forced to get stuck with Padme who he always has an argument with.  And also, Palpatine is very out-of-character in this fic being pictured from the fearsome dark lord of the Sith into your average senile old man who is in the danger of getting a heart attack every time he's angry.  However being a man, he is hardly the nagging type, just the controlling type trying to make sure he keeps up his complete monster nature which wanes away because he's forced to stuck up against a family of idiots.