He hates the idea that the woman he loves was conceived: the mother in law is the clear image of the decrepitude that she doomed her daughter to by giving her life, and her obesity and her wrinkles forecast the obesity and wrinkles that the future so sadly prefigures for the young bride; at her mother's side she is no longer an individual but an example of a species; she is no longer the desired prey or the cherished companion, because her individual existence dissolves into universality.