Tiếng Việt · Proverb Candidate

mẹ chồng già mẹ chồng chết, nàng dâu có nết nàng dâu chừa

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Meaning · English

A good daughter-in-law behaves well regardless of her mother-in-law's presence or absence

Literally: mother-in-law old mother-in-law dead, daughter-in-law has virtue daughter-in-law abstains

Examples

Cô ấy luôn biết cách đối nhân xử thế nên dù mẹ chồng già mẹ chồng chết, nàng dâu có nết nàng dâu chừaShe always knows how to behave properly, so whether her mother-in-law is present or not, she remains virtuous

AI-drafted example auto-approved by rule (illustrative, not a corpus attestation)

Sources & notes

Discovered via Nam ngạn chích cẩm (Phạm Quang Sán, 1918; public domain, via vi.wikisource); retrieved 2026-08-01. Source: source ↗ Attested in Nam ngạn chích cẩm (Phạm Quang Sán, 1918). Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-08-01; pending editor spot-check.

Common questions

What does “mẹ chồng già mẹ chồng chết, nàng dâu có nết nàng dâu chừa” mean?

A good daughter-in-law behaves well regardless of her mother-in-law's presence or absence Literally: mother-in-law old mother-in-law dead, daughter-in-law has virtue daughter-in-law abstains

Is “mẹ chồng già mẹ chồng chết, nàng dâu có nết nàng dâu chừa” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.