Your Mother-In-Law is Poison

Radcliffe-Brown's theory that institutionalised avoidance helps to maintain social conjunction in a context of potential disjunction fails to explain why the taboo on the mother-in-law is typically manifested as a sexual prohibition and why its most commonly-attested affective component is shame. An examination of the Australian Aboriginal data, including recent discussions of mother-in-law language, mother-in-law bestowal, and affinal aspects of band composition, suggests that the chief beneficiary of this uncomfortable custom is the father-in-law.