+591+. The house in which a death occurs shares the evil power of the dead body, and sometimes must be destroyed, together with all its furniture, or abandoned or purified.[947] Death diffuses its baleful influence through the atmosphere, making it unfavorable for ordinary work, which, accordingly, is often then suspended for a time.[948] Seclusion is sometimes enjoined on widower or widow,[949] and mention of the name of the deceased is forbidden--the identity of spouse or name with the dead effects the transmission of what is dangerous in him. In another direction the earthly dwelling of a dead person is protected--a curse is pronounced on one who violates it.[950] +592+. _Taboos connected with woman and the relations between the sexes._ Among many peoples there is dread of the presence of women and of their belongings under certain circumstances.[951] The ground of this fear may lie in those physiological peculiarities of woman which are regarded as mysterious and dangerous, and the antagonism of feeling may have been increased by the separation between the sexes consequent on the differences in their social functions and their daily pursuits. Woman seems to move in a sphere different from that of man; she acts in ways that are strange to him. Whatever its ground, the feeling of dread is a real one: a case is reported of a man who, on learning that he had lain down on his wife's blanket, became violently ill. +593+. Various restrictions are imposed on women at periods of sexual crisis. The girl on reaching the age of puberty is generally (though not always[952]) immured, sometimes for weeks or months, to shield her from noxious influences, human and nonhuman. During menstruation a woman is isolated, may not be looked on by the sun, must remain apart from her husband, and her food is strictly regulated.[953] It is not infrequently the case that certain foods are permanently forbidden women, for what special reasons is not clear.[954] The rule forbidding a wife to eat with her husband may have come originally from nonreligious social considerations (her subordination to the man, or the fact that she belonged to a social group different from his), but in that case it later acquired a religious character. Women have commonly been excluded in savage communities from solemn ceremonies (as those of the initiation of males) and from tribal councils;[955] such rules may have originated in the natural differentiation of social functions of the sexes or in the desire of men to keep the control of tribal life in their own hands, but in many cases the presence of women was supposed to vitiate the proceedings supernaturally. In industrial enterprises, such as hunting and fishing, they are sometimes held to be a fatal influence.[956] In family life a wife's mother was debarred from all social intercourse with her son-in-law.[957]