There are many cultural aspects surrounding how societies view menstruation. Different cultures view menstruation in different ways. The basis of many conduct norms and communication about menstruation in western industrial societies is the belief that menstruation should remain hidden. By contrast, in some indigenous hunter-gatherer societies, menstrual observances are viewed in a positive light, without any connotation of uncleanness. In most of India, menarche is celebrated as a rite of passage.
A menstrual taboo is any social taboo concerned with menstruation. In some societies it involves menstruation being perceived as unclean or embarrassing, inhibiting even the mention of menstruation whether in public (in the media and advertising) or in private (among friends, in the household, or with men). Many traditional religions consider menstruation ritually unclean, although anthropologists say that the concepts 'sacred' and 'unclean' may be intimately connected. Reprinted as
Mythology The terms menstruation and menses are derived from the , which in turn is cognate with the , and the roots of the English words month and moon.
According to anthropologists Thomas Buckley and Alma Gottlieb, cross-cultural study shows that while taboos about menstruation are nearly universal, and while many of these involve notions of uncleanliness (ritual impurity), numerous menstrual traditions "bespeak quite different, even opposite, purposes and meanings." In some traditional societies, menstrual rituals are experienced by women as protective and empowering, offering women a space set apart from the male gaze and from unwanted sexual or domestic pressures and demands. In other words, the idea of the seclusion of the menstruation hut may be perceived as banishment of the woman seen to be impure and taboo, or as a welcome space and time free of the usual daily chores: isolation versus retreat.
An instructive example is provided by the anthropologist Wynne Maggi, who spent years living in the peasant society of the Kalash people of the Chitral District in northwestern Pakistan. She describes the communal (large menstrual house) as the village's 'most holy place', respected by men, and serving as women's all-female organizing centre for establishing and maintaining gender solidarity and power.W. Maggi, 2001. Our Women are Free. Gender and Ethnicity in the Hindukush. Michigan: University of Michigan Press Also see the interview conducted in Period Matters with Kalash women where they describe themselves as being 'free' to make choices, and having the opportunity to rest during their period. According to one body of cultural evolutionary scholarship, the idea that menstrual blood marks the body as periodically sacred was initially established by female coalitions in their own interests, although later, with the rise of cattle-ownership and patriarchal power, these same beliefs and taboos were harnessed by religious patriarchs to intensify women's oppression.Knight, C. 1995. Blood Relations: Menstruation and the origins of culture. New Haven & London: Yale University Press.
Metaformic Theory, as proposed by cultural theorist Judy Grahn and others, places menstruation as a central organizing idea in the creation of culture and the formation of humans' earliest rituals.
Synchronisation with the moon Menstruation in synchrony with the moon is widely assumed in myths and traditions as a ritual ideal. The idea that menstruation is—or ideally ought to be—in harmony with wider cosmic rhythms is one of the most tenacious ideas central to the myths and rituals of traditional communities across the world. One of the most thoroughgoing analyses of primitive mythology ever undertaken was that of the French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, who concluded that, taken together, the indigenous myths of North and South America expressed men's worry that, unless women's periods were carefully monitored and synchronised, the universe might descend into chaos.
In Aboriginal Australia, the supernatural being known as the 'Rainbow Snake' has been interpreted as, among other things, an indigenous way of conceptualising the ideal of synchronised tidal, lunar, menstrual and seasonal periodicities whose overall harmony (it is believed) confers spiritual power and fertility.
To many, such cultural associations appear persuasive as, in humans, the menstrual cycle quite closely approximates the moon's 29.5-day synodic cycle, unlike in chimpanzees (~36 days) or bonobos (~40 days). Statistical information from hunter gatherers is lacking, but where large-scale western studies focus on women's peak reproductive years—removing outlier values—the cycle length gravitates around 29.1–29.5 days, while the figure for women in their thirties shortens toward 28 days. In no current human population has statistically significant lunar phase-locking been demonstrated.
Sacred and powerful
In some historic cultures, a menstruating woman was considered sacred and powerful, with increased psychic abilities, and strong enough to heal the sick. According to the Cherokee, menstrual blood was a source of feminine strength and had the power to destroy enemies. In Ancient Rome, Pliny the Elder wrote that a menstruating woman who uncovers her body can scare away hailstorms, whirlwinds and lightning. If she strips naked and walks around the field, caterpillars, worms and beetles fall off the ears of corn. Menstrual blood is viewed as especially dangerous to men's power.Exploring Gypsiness: Power, Exchange and Interdependence in a Transylvanian, by Ada I. Engebrigtsen, p. 129. In Africa, menstrual blood is used in the most powerful magic charms in order to both purify and destroy.Iron, Gender, and Power: Rituals of Transformation in African Societies, by Eugenia W. Herbert, p. 226. Mayan mythology explains the origin of menstruation as a punishment for violating the social rules governing marital alliance. The menstrual blood turns into snakes and insects used in black sorcery, before the Maya moon goddess is reborn from it.
Where women's blood is considered sacred, the belief is that it should be ritually set apart. According to this logic, it is when sacred blood comes into contact with profane things that it becomes experienced as ritually dangerous or 'unclean'.Durkheim, E. 1965 . The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. New York: Free Press. An example of this is Indian Artist Lyla FreeChild who internalised this belief and harvested her menstrual blood to paint an image inspired by a dream where she saw herself as the powerful, bleeding goddess Lajja Gauri. In an essay accompanying her art she explains her belief in the creative and healing power of menstrual blood.
Menstruation and humoral medicine
Many beliefs about menstruation in the early modern period were linked to humorism, the system of medicine introduced by Ancient Greek and Roman physicians. People believed that the human body contained four humours: blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. Illnesses and problems were understood as being caused by dyscrasia, or an imbalance in the four humours. Treatments for disease had the aim of restoring a balance, curing the patient. The humoral model was a continuity during the early modern period, despite the fact that new medical theories began to arise in the second half of the eighteenth century, because these new ideas which used different treatments involving new chemicals were not as trusted since they were not properly established.
In this way medical and popular beliefs about menstrual problems such as irregular menstruation, amenorrhea (absence of periods whilst fertile) or dysmenorrhea (painful periods) were thought of in relation to the four humours. In early modern western Europe, physicians believed that the womb could not be too cold, hot, moist or dry and that an excess in any of these could impact a woman's fertility. Significantly, people believed that warmth encouraged sexual pleasure and increased the probability of conceiving a child, meaning that the womb had to be warm during intercourse. If a woman was found to be having problems menstruating which would then impact their fertility, remedies which aimed to alter the humoral state of the body were used. Aphrodisiacs were a common remedy given to women with menstrual problems, since they were believed to have internal heating effects, stimulating menstruation by redressing the constitutional balance of a womb that was too cold.
Religious views Totemism The French sociologist Emile Durkheim argued that human religion in its entirety emerged originally in connection with menstruation. His argument was that a certain kind of action—collective ritual action—could establish simultaneously totemism, law, exogamy and kinship in addition to distinctively human language and thought. Everything began, according to Durkheim, when a flow of blood periodically ruptured relations between the sexes. "All blood is terrible", he claimed,Durkheim, E. 1963. La prohibition de l'inceste et ses origines. L'Année Sociologique 1: 1-70. Reprinted as Incest. The nature and origin of the taboo, trans. E. Sagarin. New York: Stuart. "and all sorts of taboos are instituted to prevent contact with it".
This same blood was thought to run through the veins of women and animals alike, suggesting the blood's ultimate origin in 'totemic'—part-human, part-animal—ancestral beings. Once menstrual blood had been linked with the blood of the hunt, it became logically possible for a hunter to respect certain animals as if they were his kin, this being the essence of 'totemism'. Within the group's shared blood resided its 'god' or 'totem', from which it follows, according to Durkheim, that "the blood is a divine thing. When it runs out, the god is spilling over".
Buddhism In Theravada and Hinayana Buddhism menstruation is viewed as "a natural physical excretion that women have to go through on a monthly basis, nothing more or less". However, in medieval Japanese Buddhism, menstruating women were often banned from visiting temples and sacred sites for their perceived impurity, primarily due to apocryphal texts such as the Blood Bowl Sutra, a prohibition which still exists in certain sites. Women are also currently not allowed to enter the sumo ring (dohyō) in Japan, a tradition stemming from Shinto and Buddhist beliefs that women are "impure" because of menstrual blood. In Sri Lankan Buddhism, not only menstruating women but husbands and other men who have been in a home with menstruating women are also banned from temples and shrines. By contrast, in the Kamakura Period, the founders of new Buddhist sects such as Hōnen, Shinran, and Nichiren did not consider menstruation as a spiritual obstacle to religious practice and allowed menstruating women into temples of their schools.Toshie Kurihara (not dated) A History of Women in Japanese Buddhism: Nichiren's Perspectives on the Enlightenment of WomenRepp, M. (2020). "Socio-Economic Impacts of Hōnen's Pure Land Doctrines: an Inquiry into the Interplay between Buddhist Teachings and Institutions". In Bhutanese Buddhist traditions, menstruation was historically not considered impure according to the Vajrayana beliefs; in fact menstruation was considered holy and pure as a life source for enlightened beings. In Tantric Tibetan Buddhist texts the word for the vagina is 'pema' or lotus signifying the positive symbolism attached to a woman's body.
Christianity