A nearly one-million dowry house, and my mother-in-law just opened her mouth to let my brother-in-law and his wife move in. Is it too much for me to charge rent?

(From a reader submission, images in this article are from the internet)

The house I brought as a dowry cost nearly a million, and your mother just opened her mouth to let your brother-in-law and his wife move in. Is it too much for me to charge rent?

Regarding premarital property, the law has now made things very clear, but for people like my mother-in-law, I do not know whether she is pretending to be confused while understanding perfectly, or whether she is genuinely confused. Either way, what she did left me speechless. Yet even though she was in the wrong first, she does not reflect on herself, and instead turns around and blames me for being cold, realistic, and snobbish. Everyone, please take a look and tell me who is actually wrong, all right?

My husband comes from a rural area. He started working in the city after graduating from university. His family was poor, and he also grew up in a single-parent household. My father-in-law seems to have passed away when he and my brother-in-law were both still in elementary school, and the two brothers were raised single-handedly by my mother-in-law. Back then, in order to raise two sons, my mother-in-law farmed, grew vegetables, raised pigs, raised chickens, collected scrap, and during the slack farming season even went out to the city to work as a nanny. Only in this way did she painfully raise them. My brother-in-law did not attend university, but he also did not farm at home. After graduating from high school, he drifted through several cities doing odd jobs, and later also did temporary work in the city where we now live. Now he runs a small business. He got married several years ago and rents a place with my sister-in-law. Before my husband and I got married, my mother-in-law lived with the two of them in that rented apartment.

My husband's family background is truly far below my family's, but fortunately, he is motivated, his current career development is also decent, he has a lot of room for promotion, and his personal ability is very strong. On top of that, he has a gentle temper and is quite considerate toward me and my family. Although my mother once had quite a few complaints about his family background, given who he is, she was not especially opposed either. After more than two years of dating, we finally decided to get married. My in-laws could not come up with much for the bride price, and our family had not expected much anyway. We let them show a little sincerity and give whatever they could. In any case, after marriage I would still bring it over, and my natal family would not keep a single cent. In the end, my mother-in-law gave 20,000. My mother got angry as soon as she saw it. It was only after I persuaded her for a long time that she did not directly scold my mother-in-law for being too stingy. But after seeing how reluctant my mother-in-law was to act, my mother still specifically warned me to be careful after marrying over, and preferably to live separately from my mother-in-law rather than under the same roof.

It was also to keep me from suffering any grievance that my mother eventually bought a house specifically for me. But she had long been on guard, and directly registered the house under her own name. She said it was a marital home, but for now it was still her property. However, after the wedding, because my job underwent some transfers, I was busy over there and could only move in in the second half of the year. What I never expected was that, without my consent, my mother-in-law actually made the decision on her own and let my brother-in-law's family move in. When I found out, I was furious and called my mother-in-law to communicate, but she did not take it seriously. She said that since I had married in, my property was naturally their family's, and as the head of the family she could arrange it however she wanted, while I, as the daughter-in-law, could only follow her wishes.

When I heard that, I immediately felt there was no way to reason with her. I just treated it as her being truly ignorant of the law and confused, and asked my husband, who had received higher education, to come over and take the phone, but he kept silent on the side the whole time and simply would not respond. Furious, I ran home and had a big fight with him, saying that for these six months his brother and sister-in-law were living in my house and definitely had to pay rent, and that once I found out I would restrict them and make them move out immediately, otherwise I would sue them for trespassing. My husband said I should not go too far. After all, they were his own brother and sister-in-law. After hearing that, I said to him: "The house I brought as a dowry cost nearly a million, and your mother just opened her mouth to let your brother-in-law and his wife move in. Is it too much for me to charge a little rent?" Everyone, tell me, my mother-in-law let my brother-in-law and his wife move into my dowry house without my consent and showed me no respect at all. She does not understand the law, but do my brother-in-law, my sister-in-law, and my husband also not understand it? I think their whole family is just playing dumb and pretending to be foolish in order to take advantage of my natal family. Am I right, everyone?