The following is a guest post from Brett Maiden, a PhD student in the Graduate Division of Religion at Emory University. He studies the Hebrew Bible and religions of the ancient Near East, and his current research explores the role of evolved cognitive architecture in shaping impurity laws and representations of divine agents.
In a
hilariously provocative essay, Gloria Steinem ran an
interesting thought experiment based on the hypothetical question “what would
happen if suddenly, magically, men could menstruate and women could not?” She
surmised the following:
Clearly, menstruation would become an enviable, worthy,
masculine event. Men would brag about how long and how much…Generals,
right-wing politicians, and religious fundamentalists would cite menstruation
("men-struation") as proof that only men could serve God and country in
combat ("You have to give blood to take blood"), occupy high political office
("Can women be properly fierce without a monthly cycle governed by the planet
Mars?"), be priests, ministers, God Himself ("He gave this blood for our sins"),
or rabbis ("Without a monthly purge of impurities, women are unclean").
Despite Ms. Steinem’s gift for raising public consciousness
through satire, this scenario clearly does not reflect the reality of our
situation. Far from it. Even among highly industrialized western societies,
menstruation and menstrual blood are topics quickly swept under the proverbial
rug. For example,
a substantial majority of U.S. adults and adolescents believe that it is socially unacceptable to discuss menstruation, even within the family. When it is mentioned, it is usually spoken of in familiar euphemisms (“on
the rag” and “the curse”). This silence has led to feelings of horror and
confusion and has perpetuated a
general ignorance about menstrual bleeding. The
feminist Simon de Beauvoir, in recalling the experience of her first period,
wondered what “shameful malady I was suffering from.” Overall, therefore, there
exists the unfortunate view among some—of both sexes—that menstruating women
are impure and repulsive. The menstrual taboo has a long historical legacy and
the Bible itself is not shy about tackling the “problem” of menstruation. Given
the prominent position that this collection of books is accorded in our society
as well as the number of people who claim to live by its literal interpretation,
it is critical to examine what the Bible actually says about menstruation.
We begin our brief survey with the most complete discussion
of menstrual impurity in the Bible, found in chapter 15 of the Book of
Leviticus. This book is, from an academic perspective, one of the most
interesting texts in the Bible, while at the same time one of the most
troubling from the perspective of modern ethical sensibilities.
According to Leviticus 15:19-33, a menstruating woman is
considered impure for seven days and contaminates anything upon which she sits
or lies during that time. Anyone who touches her becomes impure. Anyone who
touches anything she has contaminated becomes impure and they must wash
their clothes, bathe in water, and remain impure until the evening. Moreover, intercourse
with a menstruating woman causes a man to be impure for seven days, and
anything he touches thereafter likewise becomes impure. Menstrual blood was
thus considered exceedingly potent, to say the least. Lastly, it is worth
noting that when a woman gives birth she is also “impure as at the time of her
menstruation” (Lev 12:12-5). If she bears a male baby, she remains impure
for 33 days. If she bears a female baby, the time is double.
Leviticus 20:18 (written by a different group of priestly authors
than chapters 1-16) is more explicit and less lenient, “If a man lies with a woman having her sickness and uncovers
her nakedness, he has uncovered her flow and she has uncovered her own flow of
blood; both of them shall be cut off from their people.” The Hebrew word translated here as “sickness” is dawah,
which also notably appears in Isaiah to denote filthy menstrual rags. Its use
in Leviticus indicates that menstruation was viewed negatively as a repulsive
illness.
Similarly, the borderline psychotic prophet Ezekiel appeals to his
audience’s disgust of menstrual blood in order to shift their emotional
indignation to the problem of pagan idolatry: “Mortal, when the house of Israel
lived on their own soil, they defiled it with their ways and their deeds; their
conduct win my sight was like the uncleanness of a woman in her menstrual
period (Ezek 36:17). The menstruant is commonly used throughout the Hebrew
Bible as a metaphor for extreme pollution and utter revulsion (see Lamentations
1:17; Ezra 9:11).
The Jewish rabbis inherited this tradition of biblical
regulations and engaged in extensive debates regarding the legal minutiae of
menstrual impurity (
niddah). The
Babylonian Talmud (
b. Ketubot
61a) declared that a menstruant may attend to all the needs of her
household…that is, with the exception of filling her husband’s cup of wine,
making his bed, and washing him (charitable concessions to the woman, indeed!).
However, not all the sages were quite so generous. The Mishnah includes an
entire tractate devoted to issues of female impurity. In this document,
menstruating women were quarantined in a special chamber known as the “House
for Impure Women” (
m. Nid. 7:4;
b. Nid. 56b). Rabbi Akiba referred
to menstruants as
galmudah, “segregated,” while others held that it was
forbidden to eat with them (
t. Šabbat 1:14). Another text states that
“if a menstruant woman passes between two men, if it is at the beginning of her
menses, she will slay one of them, and it if is at the end of her menses, she
will cause strife between them” (
b. Pesah. 111a). Finally, the Jewish
sage Nahmanides (aka Ramban) states that the breath of a menstruating woman is
harmful and her gaze detrimental.
I, myself, cannot help but think that this whole
discussion represents an unfortunate example of misspent human energy.
We can also get a glimpse of what life was like for women in
ancient Israel from non-biblical sources. For example, one text found among the
Dead Sea Scrolls known as the Temple Scroll envisions the construction
of a utopian Jewish temple accompanied by maximum standards of purity. In this
idyllic world it is decreed: “And in every city you shall allot places…for
women during their menstrual impurity and after giving birth, so that they may
not defile in their midst with their menstrual impurity” (11Q Temple 48:14-17).
The Jewish historian Josephus also testifies that menstruants were quarantined
for seven days (Antiquities 3.261).
Of course, such superstitious attitudes toward menstruating
women and blood were not confined to ancient Israel. In Mesopotamia, a menstruating
woman is referred to by the term musukkatu, and it is said: “If a man
touches a musukkatu woman who is passing by, for six days he will not be
pure.” In ancient Egypt, menstruating women are included among the most severe
religious prohibitions (bwt), the violation of which constituted an act
of cosmic and lethal personal consequences. In Islam, the Qur’an declares:
“They question thee (O Muhammad) concerning menstruation. Say it is an illness
so let women alone at such times and go not into them until they are cleansed”
(2:222). (Incidentally, you need look only a few verses later to uncover this paragon
of gender equity: “Women are like fields for you, so seed them as you intend”).
Lastly, the Roman Pliny embodies the revulsion which we have been discussing as
he writes:
Contact with the monthly flux of women turns new wine sour,
makes crops wither, kills grafts, dries seeds in gardens, causes the fruit of
trees to fall off, dims the bright surface of mirrors, dulls the edge of
steel and the gleam of ivory, kills bees, rusts iron and bronze, and
causes a horrible smell to fill the air. Dogs who taste the
blood become mad, and their bite becomes poisonous as in rabies. (Natural
History 7.64)
One wonders about the rigorous scientific methods
by which Pliny ever collected such data.
So here we stand now in the twenty-first century, in an age
of unparalleled scientific and medical advancement. And yet the menstrual taboo
remains one of the most pernicious and persistent cultural phenomena to this day.
My intention is that this survey of cultural and religious attitudes, while far
from being comprehensive, provides a clear picture of precisely where a modern
fear of menstrual blood originated. We may no longer believe that menstruating
women are capable of withering crops or necessitate quarantining, but society
continues to view menstruation in a generally negative light. Would it not
promote a healthier society if,
as writer Karen Houppert proposes, we were to
regard menstruation more like sneezing or having a cold? Or better yet, why not
conceptualize menstruation as something positive, powerful, and life-giving? We
currently bear the cultural and psychological burden of ancient religious laws,
and we should be eager to pay off this onerous debt.
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| Sarah Maple. Menstruate with Pride. 2012. |
