Other examples of in-law avoidance appear in cross-cultural analyses. For example, Murdock (197 1) examined mother-in-law avoidance in 89 societies selected as being representative of world cultures. His analysis of son-in-law, mother-in-law, daughter-inlaw, and father-in-law relationships suggested widespread occurrence of respect, formality, absence of joking, and avoidance of parents-in-law. In general, then, a variety of instances suggest the simultaneous presence of contact-almost forced by the relationship itself-and noncontact between in-laws. As stated,the particular mechanisms by which contact is modulated seem to be unique to cultures and involve different combinations of environmental, verbal, and nonverbal mechanisms.