Again, in Australia, it is compulsory on the mothers-in-law to avoid the sight of their sons-in-law, by-making the former take a very circuitous route on all occasions, to avoid being seen, and they hide the face or figure with the rug which the female carries with her. So strict is the rule, that if married men are jealous of any one, they sometimes promise to give him a daughter in marriage. This places the married man’s wife, according to custom, in the position of mother-in-law, and renders any communication between her and her future son-in-law a capital crime.[13] Also among the Sioux or Dacotas, Mr. Philander Prescott remarks on the fear of uttering certain names. The father and mother-in-law must not call their son-in-law by name, and _vice versa_, and there are other relationships to which the prohibition applies. He has known an infringement of this rule punished by cutting the offender’s clothes off his back and throwing them away. Harmon says ‘that among the Indians east of the Rocky Mountains it is indecent for the father or mother-in-law to look at or speak to the son or daughter-in-law.’ Among the Yakuts, Adolf Erman noticed a more peculiar custom. As in other northern regions the custom of wearing but little clothing in the hot stifling interior of the huts is common there, and the women often go about their domestic work stripped to the waist, nor do they object to this disarray in the presence of strangers; but there are two persons before whom a Yakut woman must not appear in this guise, her father-in-law and her husband’s elder brother. Again, quoting J. G. Wood, he says the native term for these customs of avoidance is, ‘being ashamed of the mother-in-law.’ The Basuto custom forbids a wife to look in the face of her father-in-law till the birth of her first child--and among the Banyai a man must sit with his knees bent in presence of his mother-in-law, and must not put out his feet towards her. Now an important circumstance to be remarked in nearly all cases of Avoidance is, that it principally exists between people of different sexes,--thus an _a priori_ inference may be drawn that the primary cause lay in some relation to the sexual question. It is significant that a woman’s avoidance of her husband’s relations is with those in the ascending line, i.e. with his seniors. Against his juniors he can defend himself, against his seniors he needs the protection of law. In the cases we have cited, it is significant that, besides the father-in-law, _hlonipaed_ among the Kaffirs, the woman must _hlonipa_ all her husband’s male relations in the ascending line. Among the Yakuts she must not appear unclothed before her husband’s elder brother. Among the Veddahs of Ceylon a father will not see his daughter, nor a mother her son, after they have _come to years of maturity_.[14]