Gelenek gereği kaynanasını kucaklamak zorunda kalan damat

What does “kaynanayı kucaklamak” mean in Turkish?

Kaynana is the Turkish word for mother-in-law, and Turkish culture treats the gelin-kaynana (bride / mother-in-law) dynamic as endless comic material. Kaynanayı kucaklamak literally means to embrace / lift the mother-in-law. Turkish tradition includes plenty of real wedding tests of the groom (carrying the bride over the threshold, paying the bohça), so when a sketch invents a fake one, the joke lands.

In this Güldür Güldür sketch (Show TV’s long-running Sunday-night sketch show), the prospective groom is told he must prove his strength by kaldırmak the kaynana, on the spot, in the living room. The bit works because Turkish wedding rituals genuinely do put the groom on the back foot. The fake test plays plausible enough.