According to Atticus, Mayella was motivated to lie to rid herself of guilt. What rigid code of her society did she break?It is a To Kill a...

The pitiful Mayella Ewell is certainly one of the most
sympathetic characters in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird.
Mayella was the oldest of Bob Ewell's children, and following the departure of her
mother, Mayella was left to serve as the family's surrogate mother. She had no friends
or money and no social life. She was so desperate for human interaction that she invited
Tom Robinson--a married African-American man--into her home under the pretense of
helping her with moving a chiffarobe (chest of drawers). Her true intention was to
somehow gain his affections, but when she threw her arms around him and kissed him, Tom
bolted from the house. This was the "code of society" that she violated: Whites and
blacks rarely mixed socially in Depression era Alabama, and any kind of physical or
sexual contact between different races was taboo. So, instead of admitting the truth,
she decided to claim (no doubt prompted by her guilty and ashamed father) that Tom
attacked her.