Menstruation

Menstruation

The first subject is the physical maturity of women as opposed to men and the natural event of menstruation for women. This subject in some religions is discussed under the topic of impurity. The natural law of nature to make a woman capable of reproducing and healthy is interpreted as an unusual, unclean and low status characteristic.

In this article we first bring a passage from their Holy books and then some interpretations of the laws quoted from different books related to the subject will follow.

Jewish Rules

The first religion that discusses the subject in detail is Judaism in their book Torah or Old

Testament.

In this book, Leviticus 15:19 states:

When a woman has her monthly period, she remains unclean for seven days. Anyone who touches her is unclean until evening. Anything on which she sits or lies during her monthly period is unclean. Any one who touches her bed or anything on which she has sat must wash his clothes and take a bath and he remains unclean until evening “.

It continues in the same chapter that mainly is devoted to uncleanness, as:

If a man has sexual intercourse with her during her period, he is contaminated

by her impurity and remains unclean for seven days , and any bed on which he lies is unclean “.

On the same subject, the book “Daughters of the King “ by S. Grossman and R. Haut on page 103 states:

“Many Jews, both men and women, believe that Menstruants are prohibited by Jewish law from touching a Torah scroll and participating in the synagogue prayer service “. And also from the book “Women and Jewish Law “ by R. Biale on the chapter called Niddah, Laws of the Menstruant we read:

In Jewish law the Menstruant woman has a defined status: she is a Niddah, one who is “ostracized” or “excluded”. The actual laws, which define this status, are very complex and they rest on the foundation of the two different contexts in which the Menstruant woman figures in biblical law: the laws of purity and impurity and the sexual prohibitions “. Also in Torah we read (Leviticus 20:18) If a man has intercourse with a woman during her monthly period, both of them are to be driven out of the community, because they have broken the regulations about ritual uncleanness ?‘.

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