The Sacred and the Profane: Menstrual Flow and Religious Values

Introduction

The menstruating body has been subjected to shame and trivialization by patriarchal societies both in the East and the West. As Fahs points out, ‘Negativity about menstruation subjects women to ridicule, dismissal and trivialization’ (Fahs, 2016, p. 4). The following words of a male jury member of the prestigious Oscar awards genuinely reflect the trivializing and shaming attitude of our society regarding menstruation:

[I’m not going to vote for] Period. End of Sentence—it’s well done, but it’s about women getting their period, and I don’t think any man is voting for this film because it’s just icky for men. (Donovan, 2019)

Period. End of Sentence is a short documentary film made about the attitudes on menstruation in a village in rural India. Like the male jury member, many people find the issue of menstruation as ‘depressing’, ‘repellent’ and ‘uncomfortable’. ¹ Attitudes as these have been prevalent throughout the ages on menstruation and the menstruants. The agencies perpetuating these prejudices mostly have been both religious and cultural institutions. In what follows, taking two world religions for our discussion, we critically address the patriarchal values that religions perpetuate to subjugate women by shaming the menstrual bodies.

Religious exclusion begins with naming the menstruating state. A menstruating woman is often referred to as rajaswala in Hindu tradition while Judaism labels her as niddah and Islam calls her hayz, thereby rendering the woman as beyond ‘normal’. Religious texts like the Old Testament refer to menstruation as ‘infectious time’ or as the ‘Curse of Eve’. Hindu scriptures treat menstruation as asaucha (impure). Early Christian commentators too perceived menstruation as unclean.

In Hinduism, menstruants are forbidden from participating in religious and death rituals, touching sacred objects and entering any space which is demarcated as sacred as the altar or temples. They are isolated either in seclusion huts or rooms. Vashishtha Dharmasastra says that a woman is impure for 3 days and nights during her periods, and she should not bathe, smile, beautify her body, gaze at planets or approach fire, among other things. A man who touches a menstruant must purify himself by fully dipping in water (Vashishta Dharmasastra, Part 1, Chapter 5, verses 5–9). In recent times, the Sabarimala temple issue in Kerala brought to surface the perceptions of menstruation as impure. Women from the age of 10 to 50 years (menstruating age) were barred from entering the temple. ²

Some Christian sects do not allow women to receive communion during their menses. ³ Feminists believe menstruation is the main reason to prevent women from occupying higher positions in the ministry. A passage from Leviticus in the Old Testament clearly shows a similar attitude towards menstruation.

It has also been referred to in other Levitical commentaries as ‘miserable state’, ‘illness’, ‘sin’, ‘sense of natural disgust or shame [that] has developed into an ethical and religious feeling of uncleanness’ (O’Grady, 2003, p. 12). St Jerome, a fourth-century Christian priest and theologian, contends, ‘Nothing is more filthy, unclean than a menstruant; whatever she will have touched, she makes it unclean’ (Schultz, 2003, p. 97). Even religious reformists like John Calvin called menstruation a ‘shameful thing’ (O’Grady, 2003, p. 11).

Menstruation: Feministic Religious Perspectives

In this section, we shall examine the alternate feministic perspectives in religions on menstruation. Their perceptions of menstruation stand in stark contrast to their patriarchal counterparts. The syncretic connection between Goddess, women and nature and menstruation by Goddess and the role she plays in menstruation is also discussed.

The metaphysical feministic position of the Shakta tradition perceives menstruation as an event integrating nature and women. Menstruation as ritudharma connotes the orderly female bodily cycle along with the seasons (Patel, 2005, p. 55). By drawing a parallel between nature and women, it asserts her position as a natural being: a being who is in sync with nature, a ‘natural’ being or a product of nature and not as someone ‘created’ for procreation or to complete someone (a male in particular). In India, at least two Goddesses, that is, Kamakhya in Assam and Parvati in Kerala, are known to menstruate.

In Assam, Shakti is revered in the form of Goddess Kamakhya. ⁴ The temple is unique, as the Goddess is worshipped in the yoni form. ⁵ The Ambubachi or Ambuvasi ⁶ festival, customarily held from 22 to 26 June celebrates the menstruation time of Kamakhya. The waters of the Bramhaputra turn red during the monsoon, and this redness is interpreted as a symbol of the starting of the Goddess’s menses.

On the one hand, a woman’s menstrual blood is treated with disgust, and on the other, the angadhak and angabastro ⁷ are treated as the harbingers of fertility and protection from all forms of evil. Folklore explains why women in Assam have to practice menstrual taboos. King Noranarayan secretly watched the Goddess as she was dancing in the temple during her flow. When she became aware of the King’s presence, she cursed him and his clan, stating calamity would befall them if they dared even to look or visit the temple. To redeem himself of the guilt, the King made the practice of menstrual taboo and tuloni biya ⁸ compulsory in every household. As the story suggests, prior to this episode, there was no such prohibition against menstruating women entering a temple; rather, the prohibition ensued from the hurt male ego of a king!

The other Goddess who is known to menstruate is Parvati in the Chengannur Mahadeva temple of Kerala. The head priest has to check bloodstains on the Goddesses’ attire. It is believed that the Goddess menstruates once in 3–4 months. While menstruation, the idol is kept in another room in the temple. On the fourth day, the idol is taken for a ritual bath for cleansing and reinstated back in the original temple. This practice clearly shows how menstruation is viewed as a taboo even for a Goddess, but the significant aspect to be noted from a feministic perspective is that menstruation is natural for women, even for a Goddess.

The menstruation of the Goddess makes her akin to every common woman, who feels an ally in her, who too in menstruation is forbidden to enter the sanctum she usually would share with her husband. ⁹ When one reads the DeviMahatmyam, Goddess Mahishasuramardini is ‘formed/created’ out of the teja (the being) of all the ‘male’ Gods present (Devi Mahatmyam, Chap. 2, verses 10–13, p. 27). Maybe this account makes her servile to the male, to obey the rules of man. In a dialogue between Shiva and Parvati in the Siva Purana, Parvati says, ‘With my blessings you become qualitative and embodied. Without me you are attributeless and incompetent to perform any activity. Being always subservient to prakriti you perform all activities’ (Siva Purana, Vol. II, Chap. 13, verses 19–20). On the one hand, where the supremacy of the Goddess over the male Gods is emphasized, she is subjected to the purity rules mandatory for a common woman to obey. Thus, patriarchy in some way claimed to give respect and reverence to the Goddess (feminine) and yet, on the other hand, made her like the ordinary woman and reiterated that purity rules could not be mended for anyone.

Korte (2003) observes that in comparison to patriarchal religions, female-dominated religious perspectives ¹⁰ do not focus on blood but food. Since women controlled kitchens, food rituals form the foundations which are more public and increase communal harmony. The food is generally vegetarian and does not involve the slaughter of animals. This view is seconded by cultural anthropologist, Nancy Jay, who opines that patriarchy requires presence of blood in rituals as their blood ties are ambiguous (Jay, 1992, p. 36). Female-dominated religions do not require any reinforcement of blood ties, as the ties are more pronounced and evident. Another difference is the absence of feeling of ‘uncleanness’ due to menstruation. On the other hand, rituals in these cults celebrate ‘womanhood’. Hence, in such cults, a woman is not excluded from any ceremony or place of worship on the grounds of menstruation.

In her work, Fedele (2014) discusses practices of a group of Spanish and Catalan women of the ‘Goddess Wood’ ¹¹ group. These women refer to themselves as pilgrims of Saint Mary Magdalene and not as Christians. ¹² They look upon Mary Magdalene as the guardian of menstrual blood. ¹³ They adopt a syncretic approach to nature and women. The emphasis of the Church on the spirit has lead to demeaning of the body, in turn resulting in a crisis of the environment and violence towards women according to its followers. The movement seeks to revise our notions of body and Earth. It promotes a vision of the body as sacred and the Earth as filled with divine beings unlike a naturalistic outlook, treating both as mere matter. ¹⁴ The Shakta-Hindu tradition too accords a prominent value to the body and integrates women, Earth and divinity, thereby offering a feministic religious tradition that protects the natural environment.

Fedele discussed at length a ritual of menstruation conducted by Estrella, a follower of Goddess Wood cult. It centred around collecting one’s menstrual discharge and offering it along with fruits in a hole dug in the Earth. The blood symbolizes a woman’s power. Offering that to Earth is indicative of merging oneself with the Earth and Mary Magdalene. Estrella describes the process in an interview as,

When you offer your blood to the Earth, it is as if you lower your blood inside a vessel down to Earth… Then you pull up the container again, and the energy is so powerful because it is the energy from Mother Earth. She makes the energy rise up to the heart and there you meet Mary Magdalene. (Fedele, 2014, p. 27)

It purports to end distinctions and perceive continuity bewteen the human and the divine through the nature. Many followers, in a heightened sense of integration, chose not to procreate to lessen the burden of Earth. The women of Goddess Wood believe in rituals, as these either ‘invert’ or turn ‘upside down’ the patriarchal Christian traditions and rituals. Instead of an altar raised above the ground in a Christian Church, the altar for this cult is a hole dug in the Earth. This is indicative of submersion and not elevating from the Earth. Wine (blood of Christ) offered as eucharist in the Church is replaced by menstrual blood. Thus, sacralizing it, fit to be offered to the Goddess Earth and not as a source of impurity.

Theorizing Purity

One may reflect on the connection between menstruation and purity. How did purity come to be associated with menstruation? Is the relationship justified? To understand, one needs to examine the notion of purity and the place it has occupied in the everyday social world. According to Mary Douglas, purity serves as a system of organizing categories. Douglas claims that rules of purity and uncleanness offer a ‘looking glass approach’ (Douglas, 2001) into a pattern which a society seeks to establish. Pollution beliefs relate nature with moral order. Natural calamity may befall where pollution rules are not obeyed. Purity rules serve as a social purpose than anything else, that is, to establish a social order in the community.

Rules of purity then seem to be found in highly developed cultures. Coinage of words as ‘sacred’ and ‘holy’ is based on this meaning of separation. She refers to Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, the work of Durkheim wherein he opined that primitive religion did not aim at the salvation of man but to acquire the favour of Gods. Preservation of society demanded to appease the Gods through a set of rituals and observances. These underlined the separation and demarcation of things as sacred and non-sacred. Durkheim argued that the sacred was contagious, as the deities were abstract projections of the collective experience that yielded them fluidity. There was a need to protect their identity from flowing into other ideas. The sacred, thus, needed to be cordoned by prohibition and separation (Durkheim, 1995, p. 303).

Douglas observed that purity rituals of primitive culture are symbolic than being based on hygiene. She quotes Professor Harper’s study on Havik Brahmin pollution rules. A Havik Brahmin could get polluted by touching manure or a rope touched by an untouchable servant, consuming food not cooked following purity rules and touching people considered as impure as menstruating women or untouchables. An act of bathing can achieve purity. Contact with water nullifies impurity and restores purity. Drawing from the root meaning of the word ‘holy’ which means to ‘set apart’. Douglas deliberated on the interrelatedness of notions of ‘power’ and ‘danger’. The Old Testament reiterates the idea of God’s blessings with prosperity and withdrawal of blessing with danger. With blessings arise order in society and other good as the flourishing of one’s lineage, livestock, etc. and their removal leads to disorder, loss of fertility and other evils. ‘Holiness’ also implies completeness. Stressing on physical perfection, Leviticus holds all goods offered, and people entering the temple, must be physically perfect. All discharges from the body were considered impure. After childbirth, women were allowed to enter the temple only after purification. Douglas inferred that the body had to be whole or complete to be perfect. ‘… the idea of holiness was given an external, physical expression in the wholeness of the body seen as perfect container’ (Douglas, 2001, p. 53). Douglas believes that the human body is the symbol of society. Society is the macrocosm and body the microcosm. The powers and dangers attributed to society can be transferred to the human body. Primitive cultures believe bodily dirt to possess power and danger. Margins were thought to be dangerous. Bodily orifices are perceived to be the most vulnerable points of the body. Matter coming forth from them as blood, milk, urine, etc. are marginal stuff, as they have transgressed the boundary of the body to the outer. The disorder is indicative of danger and power. Van Gennep writes:

Whoever passes from one to the other finds himself physically and magico-religiously in a special situation for a certain length of time…this symbolic and spatial area of transition may be found in more or less pronounced form in all the ceremonies which accompany the passage from one social and magico-religious position to another. (Van Gennep, 1960, p. 18)

According to Douglas, people in a marginal state evoke a response of fear and insecurity. She interprets the transitional states (the marge) that Arnold Van Gennep describes in his book The Rites of Passage as dangerous, owing to the ambiguity of such states. The person in transition posits a danger to oneself and also to others. A ritual can control such a threat, leading to temporary segregation from society until a more definite stage is reached. Thus, one may interpret the prohibition of menstruants from religious worship is aimed at such segregation, which ensures the safety of menstruating women, but this interpretation is a vestige of primitive cultures reinforced by the patriarchal values and beliefs.

Conclusion

Majority of World religions being predominantly patriarchal in their social set up, the scriptures have either been written by men or transmitted through men. Rules of purity for women have been codified by men and, hence, are prejudiced towards women. Women learn about themselves from men not from women, or even if transmitted through women, it is often within a patriarchal structure. An overview of these religious practices, as taken up in this article, reveals that these faiths display prejudice against menstruation and menstruants. By associating it with uncleanness and pollution, menstruation is projected as something unnatural, disgusting, shameful, undesirable, state of punishment, a sign of the demonic and negation of life. A menstruant is impure and can transfer this impurity either directly through touch, casting one’s shadow or indirectly when a person touches the object touched by the menstruant. Not only can the ordinary be contaminated, but even the sacred needs to be ‘protected’; hence, seclusion of the menstruant is mandated. The purported impurity can be cleansed using water and/or by longer duration of isolation.

Conversely in female-dominated religions, the notions of disgust for menstruation are absent. They are replaced with sacrality, as menstruation is accepted not condemned. Feministic religions centre rituals around menstrual blood, enabling the menstruant to feel pride and celebration during the period. It forges a bond of togetherness, connectedness with other women on the one hand and the Earth on the other. In the patriarchal religions, she is ‘the other’, whereas in feministic religions, she is ‘one in many’.

The binaries of power in structuralism help one to theorize menstrual taboos. In the binary of man and woman, when a man is the archetype of society, as posited by patriarchy, every aspect of the male becomes the standard of value. The body of the male becomes sacred and that of the woman, ‘the other’, profane. As men do not menstruate, its issuance from the woman’s body is described as unnatural, disgusting and so on. In feministic religions, the power shifts from male to female. In this case, it is the female body which thoroughly known and understood; hence, menstruation is perceived as natural and even celebrated. These binaries help in understanding the discourse of purity too. The body is the microcosm and society the macrocosm.

What makes something pure or impure depends upon the archetype the society chooses to represent itself. In itself, nothing is either pure or impure in the sense of having a value or disvalue. These notions have meaning when objects are valued, keeping a standard in mind. Sacredness and profanity are products of the clash of values brought by conflicting perspectives prevalent in the culture. Menstrual taboos are, thus, a product of the prevalence of patriarchal values in society to the detriment of gender equality in any society.